


And to All a Good Night

by onlyapapermoon



Series: Courser [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Anal Plug, Animal Play, Bondage, Christmas, Dehumanization, Extremely Dubious Consent, Kidnapping, M/M, Muteness, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Piercings, Pony Play, Spanking, Theft, Training, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:11:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2045529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyapapermoon/pseuds/onlyapapermoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cody has bigger targets to rob this Christmas than a couple apartments, but he needs a reindeer to pull his sleigh if he's going to get in and out of his targets' houses safely. He remembers a certain Rudolph from the previous year, though, and decides that with a bit of training, his new pet would be the perfect solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Cody Tolentino prided himself on thinking outside the box. Sure, there were some people who had thought of the Reverse Santa ploy before, but Cody was sure he was the first to improve it by making sure his marks blamed themselves for being fooled, and therefore never sought out police involvement. So when he heard that the exclusive gated community The Knolls had a supposedly unbeatable security system, he set about looking for a creative way around it.

 

The method he decided on was very creative, indeed.

 

By October, Cody had a parcel of land signed to his name (well, to one of his pseudonyms) within an hour’s walk of The Knolls, and it couldn’t be better for his purposes – it was completely isolated, out of earshot of any roads or houses, and there was a barn on the property a short distance from a little ranch house. The whole thing was so cheap because it was in major disrepair, but Cody had never been afraid of hard work toward his goals, and he had the barn fully outfitted and in at least sturdy condition by the middle of November.

 

Then came the harder part. Cody had never been good with animals – he was, at heart, a city boy. And he suspected that a horse in a thick forest, like the one behind The Knolls, would be unwieldy and noisy – and also expensive, if he wanted a decent one. Stealing an animal was always an option, but people got so sensitive about their pets going missing…

 

Of course, a certain type of animal went missing on its own all the time. Cody glanced at a length of garland he’d pinned to his bedroom wall, a souvenir from the last Christmas, and grinned.

 

\--

 

The acquisition itself was surprisingly easy. Kurt Hummel lived in the same apartment as before, and two days of surveillance made it clear that, although a surprising number of people cycled in and out of the building, there were enough times when the others were absent that Cody would have no trouble catching him alone.

 

Sure enough, all it took was some good timing and a key he’d pickpocketed from the blonde guy who may or may not have actually lived there, and Cody was in the apartment and face to face with his target.

 

Kurt hadn’t seemed to remember him yet, even as he was opening his mouth to say something – or maybe scream, but Cody didn’t think it was likely – but Cody wasn’t particularly concerned either way. Cody darted forward and pressed a cloth over his nose and mouth, holding it there even through an admittedly impressive struggle. A minute later, Cody had cleaned up anything he might have left behind or knocked out of place, and he was bundling his unconscious prize out of the apartment to the rental car he’d parked in front of the building.

 

Cody made sure that his passenger, slumped in his seat as if sleeping, had his face turned away from any toll booths and cameras, and the trip northeast passed uneventfully. Soon enough, he was unloading the limp body from the car and bringing it into the barn to get him ready for the task ahead.

 

Cody let himself start by taking a moment to look over his new pet, lying on the floor of the barn. The boy had grown and filled out since the year before, his muscles becoming even more defined than Cody remembered, which made him an even better choice than Cody had thought. He still had that pretty face, though, and, as Cody crouched down and forcibly opened his mouth to check, those little teeth that made Cody think immediately of blowjobs. Cody pulled back from that thought for now, though. He’d have to wait until he was far more docile to even hope for that.

 

With a sigh, Cody stood back up and retrieved the things he’d need.

 

The first order of business was to make sure his little reindeer wouldn’t wake up during preparations, but a carefully-prepared shot in the neck took care of that. Then Cody went about removing all his pet’s clothing, piling in a heap to hide somewhere in the house later – he’d wait to sell it with all the other stolen goods; doing it too soon might tip someone off.

 

Once his pet was naked, Cody rolled him over so he was face down in the straw, and then carefully arranged his arms so they were folded behind his back. Each hand was positioned so it was gripping the inside of the opposite elbow, with the forearms lying parallel against each other.

 

The first layer of wrappings to secure the arms was a medical bandage, wrapped firm but not too tight – Cody didn’t want any weird circulation problems developing. Over that went a few bands of medical tape securing everything by wrapping around each wrist/forearm pair. Then came what was essentially a heavy leather tube, shaped roughly like a U. It was plush on the inside, to wick away sweat and keep the arms healthy and not pinch nerves, but the construction was sturdy and fitted enough that there would be no escape from it. Cody carefully wrapped it around the folded-up arms and did up the lacings along its entire length, trapping Kurt’s hands and arms securely inside. To make extra-sure there would be no Houdini impressions, Cody took a roll of medium-brown duct tape and wrapped it around and around the leather binder, overlapping each layer so that the binder now looked like a single solid reindeer-colored entity, the laces and openings completely invisible.

 

Satisfied, Cody sat back and admired his work. His pet was now effectively armless, and would have no hands to undo latches or unclip any parts of his harness. He was tempted to celebrate by letting himself have a bit of fun with the ass so temptingly on display, just below where he had straddled his pet in order to do up his arms. Cody sighed, though, and reminded himself that there was still work to be done, and his work ethic wouldn’t be satisfied if he took a break now, even if his libido would be.

 

The feet were up next. Cody knew he might possibly be able to get away without doing anything there, but he didn’t like the idea of having to take time out due to frostbite, and he suspected that hooves would be more useful in breaking through snow and ice for traction than soft feet. So, he’d found some boots that looked enough like hooves, like platform-heeled boots but without the heel, just a steep curve up along the arch of the foot. Walking in them would force his little reindeer onto his toes, but that would only help in bracing to pull the load of a sleigh. Cody cheerfully admitted to himself that he was also looking forward to watching that round ass sway in the gait the boots would enforce.

 

Getting the boots onto a pair of utterly limp feet turned out to be more of a challenge than anticipated, and Cody had to roll his pet over onto his back again, straw now sticking in chestnut bangs, so that he could pull each foot into his lap to tug the boots on and lace them up firmly. Another layer of brown duct tape per foot had the laces completely covered there, as well, and he was left with something that looked gratifyingly like a reindeer’s hoof.

 

Cody pushed the second hoof off his lap and smiled. He was sweating from the effort and excitement already, but it was well worth it.

 

He needed to take a breath and center himself, though, because the next part would be the trickiest. He dragged his reindeer’s limp body over to a table in the corner of the room and deposited him on it on his back, with his head dangling back over the edge. The mouth naturally fell open like that, and Cody was able to shine a flashlight down the throat and see everything, down to the vocal cords. Those were his goal, and Cody held his breath as he maneuvered a syringe toward them one-handed, then pierced one and depressed the plunger. Once the syringe was back out and lying on the table, Cody exhaled, then grinned in triumph. He’d see just how effective it had been once his pet woke up, but it should have worked to paralyze one of the vocal cords and would lead to muteness for at least a week. He’d have to repeat the process a few times, especially right before the big night, but now he’d be free from the risk of his means of transportation giving him away, after all.

 

Cody tugged his pet completely onto the table so he could get the bridle on, strips of jaunty red leather contrasting nicely with the colors of skin and hair. He meticulously buckled the straps in place, looping around the back of the head, over the forehead, over the top of the head and under the chin, and another strap reaching from the nape of the neck up and over to the forehead, and another pair flush against the skin from the temples down to meet the strap under the chin. It was on the last pair of straps that Cody centered a pair of rings, tugging the straps into place until the rings were aligned with the corners of the mouth.

 

He held a metal bit up to the pair of rings for a second, just to make sure it would fit in place between them, but pocketed the bit for now. He looked forward to putting the bit in between those pretty lips when his prize was awake for it.

 

There was only one step left before waiting for his pet to wake up, and Cody was very much looking forward to it.

 

He heaved his pet off the table, lowering him to the ground so that he was face down in the straw again. Then Cody retrieved gloves, a bottle of lubricant, and a strange object from his pile of supplies. It was a tail, more or less – Cody had bought the sizable anal plug and a false reindeer tail, then added a thick metal wire that would curve up the crack of the ass from the plug and let the tail rest in place at the small of the back, as if it was growing there.

 

Cody straddled his pet’s upper thighs and snapped a glove onto one hand. He had no intention of ruining his reindeer just yet, so that meant preparation. He lubed up one finger and pulled an ass cheek to the side with his free hand, spreading the ass open and exposing the hole nicely. His lubed finger slid in easily, and Cody grinned. He knew it was just from the relaxing effect of the narcotics, but he liked the thought of his pet just being as obviously desperate for cock as he’d been the previous Christmas.

 

It took a little more effort to get the plug in place; Cody had to stop and add more lube twice before he could force the plug inside past its widest point, but then it slid in smoothly, taking the tail with it until both the base of the plug and the tail were flush against the skin.

 

The width of even the plug’s base was enough to force the ass cheeks apart a little, and Cody took his time enjoying the view, since he was done for now and had the time to waste. The plug’s base was visible at the bottom of the ass’ full curve, but the wire was barely visible, leaving the tail looking as if it had grown there naturally. Cody shifted and reached down to adjust himself in his pants, lingering there for a second longer than necessary.

 

There was planning to do while his little reindeer came to, though, so Cody regretfully stood up and hauled the limp body into a renovated stall, then shut the door. The stall’s sides were too high to climb or jump over, and it was too sturdy to be broken out of. There was nothing inside but straw and a trough for water bolted securely to the wall, plus a number of rings driven into the walls as attachment points for later on. The door itself just latched in place from the outside, but it was too strong to be kicked down, and though one could easily open it from the inside by reaching through the bars and undoing the latch, that required hands – and reindeer don’t have those, Cody thought with a chuckle.

 

He left his newly bound, mute, and plugged acquisition there to come back to consciousness, and took the pile of clothes and supplies with him as he headed for the house.


	2. Chapter 2

Cody was poring over a house’s floor plan and highlighting the security systems when his phone pinged. He glanced up at the window open on his laptop and watched the motion-activated camera’s image come to life. His little reindeer was stirring, and Cody watched in amusement as the boy lay in fuzzy confusion for a long minute before waking up enough to panic, tugging uselessly at his arm binder and rolling over as he tried and failed to stand in his hoof-boots.

 

Cody stood up, cracked his back, and started whistling a caroling tune as he shrugged his coat on. It was time to get started, and he was looking forward to it.

 

Opening the barn’s back door sent a gust of cold air swirling into the heated space. Cody shut it quickly behind himself with a shiver and took his time stomping the snow off his boots. The rustling of hay and loud panicked breathing from the occupied stall paused for a second, then resumed more quietly, as if someone was trying to be stealthy. Cody chuckled.

 

He waited to speak until he had unlatched the door and swung it open, revealing his prize still lying prone in the straw, legs crossed to hide his genitals, glaring up at Cody in fear and fury. The picture he made, fluffy tail barely visible, straw stuck in his hair, and his entire body shaking in impotent anger, struck Cody as adorable.

 

“Hey there, Rudolph,” Cody cooed, grinning internally when he saw his pet startle at the name, his eyes going wide as he clearly remembered who Cody was. Whether he remembered or not wasn’t a big deal, but Cody was glad of it anyway – there would be more self-blame this way, which would make everything a tiny bit easier. “Did you sleep well?”

 

Cody stepped into the stall, only for his pet to scoot clumsily away, wincing as the rough straw abraded his bare back and probably jolted at his tail and the attached plug. There was only so far to go before he ran out of stall, though, and Cody had him cornered against the wall within a few steps. Before he could think about kicking, Cody got in close, straddling his legs – and enjoying the thought that he was in the perfect position to use his pet’s mouth in that second – and dropping into a crouch, pinning him in place.

 

His pet leaned back against the wall abruptly and Cody had to move fast to pin him back against it with a strong forearm – he had no intention of getting headbutted, and these first few minutes would be crucial in establishing who was the boss.

 

“Play nice now,” Cody admonished.

 

The look he got in return was venomous.

 

Keeping his pet immobilized with a minimum of effort, Cody took a moment to ostentatiously look him up and down, his gaze lingering on the soft pink cock nestled amid neatly groomed hair. As expected, his pet’s face flushed a deep red at the scrutiny and his head snapped defiantly to the side, pointedly attempting to ignore Cody’s obvious staring.

 

Cody hummed in approval, which made his pet’s blush deepen, and patted his cheek with his free hand. “You’ll be good for me, won’t you?” he asked, reaching into his pocket.

 

His pet turned back angrily and opened his mouth to snap a reply, but couldn’t produce a response. To Cody’s satisfaction, the only noise that escaped was a hoarse wheeze, which was followed by a look of panic, then remembrance and despair. Cody nodded in satisfaction and readied the bit in his free hand, out of his pet’s sight.

 

“Good boy,” he said, pitching his voice mockingly soft. “Such a good little reindeer, aren’t you?”

 

When his pet opened his mouth again on reflex, not yet used to his missing voice, Cody was quick to slip the bit between his teeth and press it firmly into his mouth. His pet tried to toss his head back and to the side to dislodge it, but Cody leaned in too fast, crowding into his space enough that they were sharing the same air, and he had both sides of the bit clipped onto the bridle’s cheek rings in mere seconds.

 

From there, Cody leaned back a little, still pinning his pet to the wall with one arm, to give his pet some time to get used to the bit’s feel. The bit was a curb bit with a high port, the curve in the middle reaching nearly halfway toward the back of his pet’s mouth, although the ends of the bit itself only put moderate pressure against his reindeer’s cheeks. The pressure did push the cheeks back somewhat and expose the teeth in what looked like a silly smile, but Cody didn’t think it would be enough to cause damage over time.

 

His pet was trying to thrash against his hold, but the remaining drugs in his system and Cody’s position did him no favors, so Cody just waited the bucking out patiently. With some of his head’s movements, his pet nearly gagged himself, and Cody thought of helpfully giving some pointers, but decided that his pet would need to figure out for himself that fighting against the curb bit was a losing battle.

 

Watching another movement end in his pet’s throat convulsing slightly, Cody wondered if he should have made the tongue curb shorter. Assuming that the high port on its own wouldn’t be enough, Cody had added a tongue curb, a rubber tab-like extension of the port that reached farther back in his pet’s mouth, touching the tongue as far back as the back molars. When the curb chain and reins were attached and the reins were pulled from behind, the port and tongue curb would rotate upwards together in a lever action, pressing against his pet’s soft palette and causing discomfort.

 

Of course, now his pet was, in his panic, managing to jostle the shanks – the lever arms – and activate the lever action himself, stimulating his own gag reflex.

 

Cody sighed and let the thrashing continue for a second, before he reached out and grabbed one of the shanks. It nearly slipped through his fingers, but he got a good hold on the ring for reins at the end, and tugged it until his pet was forced to turn his head and face him, eyes watering from the struggle.

 

Cody just lifted his eyebrows at him and shook his head, then stopped pinning him to the wall so he could grab the curb chain with the freed-up hand and carefully clip it from cheek ring to cheek ring, passing close under his pet’s chin.

 

At the start of the process, his pet tried to squirm out of his grasp, but quickly found, as Cody knew he would, that any movement made the bit shift and rotate painfully in his soft mouth, causing pointless pain and granting him no chance of escape.

 

“Good boy,” Cody praised again, absently, when his pet stopped moving. He happily ignored the dirty look thrown his way at the praise and kindly plucked a piece of straw out of his pet’s bangs.

 

“Alright Rudolph,” Cody said, after letting the tender moment linger for a second, “it’s time to get used to your hooves!”

 

There was a look of new trepidation in his pet’s eyes as Cody clipped the reins onto the rein rings at the ends of the shanks, but it shifted into determination when Cody stood up and took a few steps back, reins still in his hands.

 

Cody was ready for the kick, though, and sidestepped it easily. He frowned. “I see you’re naughtier than I thought. Come on, up you get!” He tugged at the reins, the upward force rotating the port and tongue curb down into his pet’s tongue, hard. His pet winced and tried to kick again, but his seated position and the weight of the boots made him not only miss, but to overbalance and topple onto his side. A barely-there groan of pain escaped him at the pull on his bit, but Cody stood firm and tugged a little again, repeating “Up!”

 

The struggle continued for a full few minutes, but Cody refused to slacken the reins or his own resolve, and eventually, with eyes watering, his pet’s entire body seemed to tense in resignation and he began to struggle to his feet, eyes cast down even as his face followed Cody’s pull on the reins.

 

Cody crooned quiet praise once his pet was finally standing upright, a few false starts later. The stance was still awkward and wobbly, but there would be time to fix that. For now, Cody wasn’t concerned about kicking – his pet didn’t have the balance in his hooves yet to manage it successfully, and the training should prevent it by the time it was a physical possibility.

 

Step by wobbling step, Cody led his new reindeer out of the stall, then across the hay-strewn floor to the barn door. Every so often there would be a little jolt in the reins as the plug shifted in his pet’s ass and made him squirm. As Cody cracked the door open and a biting cold breeze swept through the gap, he could feel the reins go tense as his pet balked. When he looked back, his pet was finally looking at him again, wide-eyed and still flushed from his own nudity. Cody smiled at him encouragingly, though it had no effect. “Come on,” he urged again, and stepped outside, pulling the reins with him.

 

Cody knew where the hesitation was coming from – it was below freezing outside and there had been snow on the ground since Thanksgiving, after all. Where Cody was wearing a cozy winter coat, the only coverings on his pet’s body were the arm binder and his hooves. Still, Cody wasn’t letting that hesitation stand. A good reindeer did exactly as it was directed, regardless of the circumstances, and trusted that its master knew what he was doing.

 

He kept pulling until his pet finally gave in to the discomfort in his mouth and stumbled out the door into the snow. The poor thing seemed too shocked to even shiver at first, but the cold soon took care of that and he started shivering until his teeth rattled against the metal bit.

 

Still, Cody led him across the frozen yard to a fenced-in corral. Between the barn and the encircling trees and the rustic fence, the entire scene had a sweetly pastoral feel to it, and Cody breathed in deep, exhaling in puffs just to see the clouds of misted air. The reins in his hands jolted and jerked with his pet’s unsteady progress behind him.

 

Cody didn’t bother closing the corral’s gate behind them, though he saw his pet eyeing it hopefully. He even let go of the reins for a second so he could step around behind his pet. As he’d expected, a stagger towards the gate followed immediately, but it ended before it began when his pet lost his balance instead and fell face-first into the snow.

 

Cody just laughed jovially and crouched to grab the reins from behind, tugging until his pet struggled laboriously to his feet again, tears forming in his eyes but not yet falling.

 

That impulse taken care of for now, Cody snapped both reins against his pet’s shoulders. There was no response but obvious confusion, so Cody went with Plan B. He shifted both reins to his left hand and used the right to draw out the whip he’d strapped to his belt. “Okay,” he said, sighing ruefully, “I guess you need some remedial training.”

 

This time, when Cody snapped the reins, he also flicked the whip against his pet’s exposed ass, leaving a bright pink stripe on the right side. He was rewarded with a startle and a jump and his pet staring back at him over his shoulder, wide-eyed, but he only stumbled one step forward.

 

“That’s a little better,” Cody allowed critically, and snapped the reins and whip at the same time again, painting another stripe on the left side. His pet took two steps stumbling forward this time, hunching in pain as much as the reins and his arm binder would allow, then jolting when the tail-plug jostled something inside.

 

It took a few more tries before his pet stopped fighting and either got over his own stubbornness or figured out that the reins being snapped over his shoulders meant, “go.” Cody knew that he could have easily used verbal commands in addition to the reins, but he didn’t mind doing things the hard way and, besides, he would need his courser to follow entirely silent commands when Christmas Eve arrived.

 

When Cody tugged on the reins in a signal to “stop,” on the other hand, he was immediately obeyed. He chuckled a little, deciding that his pet was either a fast learner or really was just being stubborn the first time.

 

Cody could see his pet’s blush even from behind, but his shivering pet continued to mostly obey him as he took him through starting, stopping, and turning both ways as they made their way around the snowy corral, following whatever random trail Cody came up with. A few more stripes across the ass were earned for stubbornness or failing to follow an order fast enough, but Cody was pleased, overall. They’d need to work on his pet’s tendency not to trust the fact that Cody really would make him stop before he ran into something – he kept stopping short or trying to turn away  _before_ Cody gave an order when they were headed for a fence, for example, but Cody knew that with enough punishments and experience, they would get to a place of complete obedience soon.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Cody’s left wrist was getting a little sore from the repetitive motions, his pet was still shivering, but surer on his hooves. Deciding they’d done enough work on commands for the afternoon, Cody led his pet up to the post standing in the middle of the corral.

 

It was actually a horse walker, and Cody was proud of the work he’d done to restore and modify it. The sturdy pole in the middle of the corral extended about nine feet up, shorter than it had once been, and ended in a odd mechanical-looking box, then a long crossbar on top, perpendicular to the pole, with pegs sticking up every few inches along the crossbar’s top.

 

Cody led his panting reindeer to stand underneath one side of the crossbar, away from the center pole and, before it could become obvious what he was doing, tossed the reins up and over the bar so that they landed between one of the pairs of pegs. That way, the reins were trapped and couldn’t slide horizontally toward the center of the crossbar, or off the end of it. Cody pulled down on the reins’ ends until they were nearly taut between his pet’s bit and the crossbar, then wrapped them around his pet’s bound arms and knotted them off at that length.

 

When he stepped away, he could see his pet’s eyes widening with the realization that he’d been tethered to the bar above him, and moving forward or backward from it by more than a foot would only pull at his bit. He was sure that if his pet were allowed human speech, curses would be filling the air. As it was, there was only a heavy exhale of breath through the nose, so close to a real animal’s reaction that Cody couldn’t help but grin.

 

Cody stepped back to shake out his wrists, blow warm breath onto his own hands, and give his pet a chance to realize that keeping in motion was preferable to standing still in the freezing temperature.

 

When Cody eventually found himself on the receiving end of a few curious glances filled with trepidation, rather than being sullenly ignored, he decided it had been enough time.

 

He reached into a zipped pocket on his coat and drew out a remote. His pet clearly couldn’t tell what it was from the small distance, so he was taken completely by surprise when Cody pushed a button and the crossbar overhead began to rotate around the center pole. Being tethered far out on the crossbar’s arm meant that the swinging arm began to pull him forward in a wide circle around the pole, and there were a few stumbles before he managed to consistently walk in the direction he was pulled and not be dragged by the bit.

 

Cody nodded and watched his pet progress with some pride. He’d made the reins, bridle, and horse walker sturdy enough that they actually could drag his pet if necessary, but there he was, trotting through the snow like he’d been born wearing hooves.

 

Cody kept watching in satisfaction, calling out the occasional “good boy,” or lashing out with the whip when his pet started lagging. He’d been practicing his whip skills all year, and he was able to make each strike land neatly on the ass, to the point that it was now hard to find a patch of skin on it that wasn’t bright red from the blows.

 

His pet’s flanks were heaving with each breath, steam puffing from his forced-open mouth and trailing behind him as he walked. Cody began to half-watch as the walking continued on and on for at least three quarters of an hour, occupying himself by pulling out his phone and browsing a few sites he’d bookmarked. Every so often, he still glanced up and applied the whip, so his pet wouldn’t get the idea he could get away with slacking.

 

When his pet’s gait finally began to stagger, the excitement and exertions of the day probably kicking in, Cody slid his phone back into his pocket and grabbed the remote. He flicked the whip a few more times at the bare ass that made such a tempting target and waited until his pet had fully righted himself and looked steady again, if nearly exhausted, then pressed another button on the remote.

 

Immediately, the speed of rotation picked up. Cody could see the look of despair on his pet’s face as he was pulled forward even faster, forced to move into a real trot or risk being dragged.

 

Cody kept a ready hand on the whip and called out occasional encouragement, but he mostly allowed himself to really enjoy the effects of the faster trot. The hoof-boots enforced a high-kneed jogging gait, one that set his pet’s limp, contracted penis bouncing, though not nearly so vigorously as the bouncing of his marked-up ass. Cody grinned when he noticed that his pet’s breathing was becoming heavier, too, but not just from exertion – every so often, he nearly missed a step, and Cody was positive it was related to the shifting of his tail that was visible even from the outside.

 

He didn’t expect the faster trot to be sustainable for long this early in the training, so when his pet began to have trouble recovering from his increasingly-frequent stumbles, Cody pressed the button to slow the rotation down to its original speed, and let his pet have a bit of a cool-down. Despite the bitter cold, sweat was obviously beaded on his pet’s skin, and his shivering had stopped sometime during the trotting phase. The cool-down turned out to be somewhat literal, though, and the shivering picked up again after a few more minutes of slow walking.

 

Cody took that as his cue to turn off the machine, then untie the reins and tug them off the crossbar. Through it all, his pet didn’t make a single escape attempt, though Cody admitted it was probably just because he was near collapse.

 

Still, his pet seemed almost glad when Cody took his place behind him and snapped both reins against his shoulders, directing him forward and back into the barn.

 

Cody led a few laps around the barn’s interior once the door was firmly shut, but they were mostly to keep his pet’s circulation working, and he let his pet have a rest soon enough, leading him into his stall and hooking the reins through one of the wall rings before knotting them off.

 

“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” Cody informed him kindly, patting his cold cheek over the leather straps.

 

Cody gave himself a few minutes in the house to change into dry, warm pants, socks, and boots, and heated up a mug of coffee to take with him back to the barn.

 

When he returned, his pet jerked away from the knotted reins, where he had obviously been attempting and failing to loosen them using his bitted mouth. Cody shook his head with a “tsk” and set his coffee on the table in the corner.

 

“Do you know what happens to naughty little reindeer when they do that?” he asked, pulling a crate up in front of the stall. He undid the knot in the reins and gave them a jerk, pulling his naughty reindeer stumbling out of the stall and onto Cody’s lap where he sat on the crate. “ _This_ ,” he said firmly, laying a hand on a whip-marked buttock, “is what happens.”

 

With that, he lifted his hand and laid into the ass on his lap. Loud slaps rang through the barn with each spank, the cracking noise breaking the winter tranquility like rapid-fire gunshots. Cody landed strike after strike until he almost had trouble keeping his writhing pet still with the other arm around his waist. Wheezy gasps and grunts escaped past the bit, and the skin under Cody’s unsparing hand turned a deeper and deeper red with each spank. The whip’s welts already stood out like dense hatching on the reddening skin, and Cody was absently aware that he was probably creating a carpet of bruises that would act as a backdrop to the raised whip marks for days.

 

By the time Cody’s hand hurt too badly to continue, the little reindeer on his lap was sobbing uncontrollably and nearly hyperventilating. Cody stood up, letting his pet tumble to the straw below, where he lay wheezing and crying, back arched uselessly against the pain and eyes squinched shut.

 

When Cody came back with a blanket and some supplies and tried to scoop his pet up in his arms, his pet flinched away at first, sobbing harder. Cody shushed him soothingly, though, and managed to lift him up, wrapping him in the warm blanket and cradling him on his lap so that his ass wasn’t touching anything. “See?” Cody said firmly. “That’s what happens when you act naughty like that. Are you going to do that again?”

 

When his pet shook his head after a long second, Cody sighed and tapped his ass lightly, triggering a full-body spasm of pain.

 

“No, I want you to stomp your hoof twice for ‘no,’” he clarified. “Once is ‘yes,’ twice is ‘no.’”

 

There was another second of silence, punctuated only by the ongoing sniffles, before a hoof tapped twice on the floor.

 

“Good boy,” Cody enthused. “I was coming in here to tell you how things are going to go, but then you had to go and be naughty.” He shifted his hold a little bit, and picked up with the speech he’d been meaning to give ten minutes ago. “You’re going to be my Christmas reindeer this year. That means, if everything goes well Christmas Eve, I’ll drop you back off at your apartment and no one will ever need to know what happened here.” He could sense his pet’s interest being piqued by that, despite everything. “You’re going to pull my sleigh for a few nights, but no one else will see you, as long as you follow my instructions and stay quiet when I tell you. Do you understand?”

 

He paused until his pet nodded. Cody sighed and went to smack his ass again, but the movement apparently jostled his pet’s memory and he hurriedly tapped a hoof once on the floor.

 

Cody nodded in satisfaction and continued. “Until then, I’ll be training you to be the best courser you can be. I’ll give you directions, and you’ll follow them. I know what I’m doing, and you don’t. Do you understand?”

 

Again, there was the tap of a hoof.

 

Cody figured this would be the only time he would really bother with talking  _to_ his reindeer, so he would make the most of it. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, you have nowhere to escape to until I put you back where I found you. If you try to get me caught afterward, I have a friend who really liked the picture of you I sent him, and I gave him all your personal information and my blessing for if you do rat on me.” He paused for a second and said meaningfully, “Do you understand?”

 

His pet went very still for a second, then shivered again. The hoof tapped on the floor.

 

“Good,” Cody said.

 

He held his exhausted pet for a few more minutes before depositing him carefully back in his stall, sans blanket. After finishing his own coffee, Cody filled the trough in the stall with clean water and unclipped the reins, curb chain, and bit so his pet could eat and drink. The removal of the tail-plug was a swift business that was probably unpleasant for the poor reindeer, but Cody didn’t want him sleeping with it in, so out it came, in one quick pull. For sustenance, Cody broke an emergency ration bar into bits and scattered it over the straw in the stall, ignoring the look he got for it.

 

Cody decided he would deal with hygiene the next night, he was too tired out from the spanking, so he latched the stall door, collected his coffee mug, and turned out the lights on his way out of the barn.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day went much like the previous afternoon had. Cody went to the barn after his breakfast and got his pet bitted and reined by the simple expedient of slapping his sore ass and taking advantage of the soundless scream to shove the bit into his mouth. With his pet tied to the table in the barn by his reins, Cody was able to rake the soiled straw out of the stall and replace it with fresh. His pet looked worse for an apparently sleepless night and probably not deigning to eat his dinner, but Cody trusted he’d get over it soon enough. Getting the tail back in place turned out to be tricky when his pet was awake, but Cody persisted and eventually got him pressed flat to the table so he could screw the lubricated plug back inside. Cody kept him pinned there for a few extra moments to admire how good, how  _right_ the tail looked at the base of his pet’s spine and how the plug’s base looked peeking out between his cheeks.

 

A full hour of training in commands left a few more stripes on the already multicolored ass, but his pet seemed to remember the commands of the previous day, so Cody was pleased to be able to throw in the additional signals for “go faster,” “slow down,” and “back up.”

 

Cody gave his pet two hours of slow walking on the horse walker after that, then, after a break for his lunch and for his pet to warm up and drink some water, Cody put him back on the horse walker for a half hour, then alternated between slow and fast trotting for the two hours after that.

 

By the time the exercise was finished, the winter sun was lower in the sky. Cody had managed to finish a couple chapters in the book he was reading, while his pet’s flanks were heaving raggedly with exhausted breaths. A cool-down later, and Cody left his pet tethered in his stall for the next few hours to nap while he got some more work done on the sleigh he was perfecting.

 

After dinner came the part Cody had been looking forward to all day. His pet was beginning to smell quite strongly between the exercise and the lack of proper hygiene, and Cody thought it was high time to wash him down.

 

Since he wanted to prove that being his reindeer didn’t have to be a bad thing, Cody brought a couple of treats along with him to the barn.

 

His pet was drowsing in the straw when Cody came in and didn’t even stir at the barn door opening. Cody took a minute to appreciate the view – his pet gave no thought to modesty in his sleep, so his position on his side, while probably meant to keep pressure off his aching ass, gave Cody an excellent view of both front and back. Cody especially enjoyed the sight of the tail resting sweetly above the patchwork of colors covering that pert ass, muscles relaxed in sleep and calling to mind the way they’d jiggled with each spank the previous night. Staring for a moment longer at the plug where it peeked out at the bottom of his pet’s ass, Cody adjusted himself in his pants.

 

Deciding to give his pet a few more minutes of sleep – he’d been so good during training – Cody went to the tap on the other side of the barn to fill a couple buckets with warm water and set his treats down nearby.

 

A tug at the reins, now untied from the stall and in Cody’s hand, woke his pet right up. Cody urged him to his feet, smiling at the clumsy attempts to get upright, and led him blinking and stumbling wearily to the other side of the barn. There, Cody slung the reins up and over a hook suspended to the ceiling and tied them off, tethering his pet in place.

 

His pet stood still, waiting for what would come next, and Cody couldn’t help praising him for it – it was probably more sleepiness and confusion than real obedience, but the result was the same. “Good boy,” Cody crooned, petting his pet’s ruffled hair. His pet’s skin was rubbed adorably pink on one side from lying in the straw, and Cody had to pick a few pieces out of his hair.

 

“Here you go…” Cody pushed a sugar cube past his pet’s lips before he could resist, then stroked his cheek fondly. “You deserve a treat, don’t you?”

 

His pet’s face turned red and his alertness seemed to return along with a look of humiliation. Cody kept stroking his face, smiling when he felt the cheeks start to move a little as he started to reluctantly suck on the treat, probably famished by the day’s efforts.

 

“Such a good boy.” Cody patted him one more time on the cheek, then left him there for a moment to retrieve the buckets and a bottle. One of the buckets now had suds and a sponge floating in it, and Cody reached for the sponge first. He lifted it from the bucket, trailing bubbles and dripping water, and lifted it to his pet’s shoulder. His pet startled, but there was nowhere to go, tethered as he was, and Cody took advantage of that to begin soaping circles over his sweaty skin, beginning with the shoulders and neck before working his way down the small exposed part of the arms. Some water ran under the leather and tape, but Cody was careful to sop up most of the wetness before it could soak into the bandages.

 

From there, he dunked the sponge back into the soapy water and swished it around to get the grime out, then went back to his pet’s front. He rubbed carefully over the collarbones and pectorals, drawing meticulous circles around and over the nipples until they hardened into little buds and his pet blushed even harder than before, refusing to meet Cody’s eyes. Smiling, Cody moved on to the lower torso, still taking care to get all the muck and sweat off.

 

Cleaning the sponge a few more times, Cody moved on to the armpits, flanks, and back, enjoying the way his pet squirmed ticklishly, then tensed suddenly when Cody pulled his tail away from his body to clean the skin under it, pushing the plug deeper with the motion of his tail.

 

When Cody came back from cleaning the sponge the next time, his pet had fully tensed up and was watching him warily, legs together and almost crossed protectively. Cody knew what he was afraid of, but he skipped over the groin and ass for the time being, moving on to soaping up the thighs and legs. His pet relaxed noticeably, and Cody shook his head as he finished up the second leg. It wasn’t that Cody wasn’t going to clean him up there, he just needed to take his tail out first. He wondered why his pet seemed to expect otherwise.

 

His pet’s breathing picked up and he completely froze when Cody came back without the sponge, as if he guessed what was going to happen now, after all. Cody ignored the reaction and braced his left hand on his pet’s hip so he could grab the plug’s base with the other and pull on it, twisting and tugging until it popped free. His pet gritted his teeth around the bit and hissed at the stretch, his ass visibly gripping at the plug as it slipped out, then clenching around nothing.

 

Cody didn’t say anything to acknowledge his pet’s obvious agitation, only ran the plug under the tap to clean it and left it sitting in the sink to drip-dry for the time being.

 

When he returned, his pet was fidgeting in place, trying to turn his side toward Cody as if that would help shield him, and Cody had to sigh. The cleaning had been going so well. He shrugged off his sweatshirt, resigning himself to getting his shirt a bit wet, and pulled the bucket of soapy water within easy reach before wrapping his left arm snugly around his pet’s waist. The reins kept his pet in place too securely for him to escape Cody’s grasp, and Cody took advantage of the immobilization to slide the sponge over his pet’s lower back, suds trickling down toward the crack of his ass in foamy rivulets.

 

Cody rubbed the sponge in gentle circles down his pet’s ass, putting very little pressure on the welts and bruises, but making sure all of it was clean of dirt and sweat, even down inside the crack. His pet tensed even more in Cody’s hold when the sponge made little lingering circles around his asshole, but although Cody was happy to note that it was still gaping a little, he didn’t press in.

 

Walking around to his pet’s other side, Cody got a hold of him again, not wanting to deal with chasing him around if he took to trying to spin in place or something equally annoying. As he brought the sponge, freshly cleaned again, towards his groin, though, his pet lifted his hoof in obvious panic as if to stomp on Cody’s toe.

 

“Hey!” Cody admonished, slapping his pet’s ass hard. “No! Naughty!”

 

His pet’s back arched at the blow, eyes opening wide and a wheeze escaping his mouth.

 

“Bad!” Cody reinforced, slapping again. When his pet had stopped squirming in pain, Cody grabbed his chin with the hand holding the sponge, dripping soap bubbles down onto the curb chain, and shook him lightly. He forced his pet to look at him. “You don’t do naughty things like that, do you understand?”

 

His pet stared back at him, eyes watering but suddenly almost defiant again, and Cody shook him again, giving his ass another series of hard swats with the other hand. His pet sucked in a sharp, pained breath through his nose and shook with pain, eyes rolling back in his head.

 

“I said, do you understand?” Cody repeated once his pet was only shivering a little. This time, his pet slowly lowered his eyes and stomped his hoof on the floor once.

 

“Good boy,” Cody said. He let go of his pet’s chin and wiped the soap suds off his face gently. “Are you going to do that again?”

 

There were two stomps, and Cody nodded, satisfied. “Good boy,” he said again.

 

He lowered his sponge to his pet’s groin and there was no resistance this time. He didn’t linger much in soaping the area up, but he was careful to get the inner thighs clean, as well as the ball sac and perineum, insinuating his hand between his pet’s thighs and rubbing the sponge back and forth on the latter until he could see his pet’s dick beginning to fill slightly. Satisfied with the reaction and with the deep flush spreading from his pet’s cheeks to chest, Cody finished there and wrapped the sponge around his cock, wiping it from base to tip a few times to make sure it was thoroughly clean. The action made it thicken inside the sponge slightly, and his pet was soon breathing rapidly in arousal and humiliation.

 

Cody kept stroking the cock for a little longer than necessary, enjoying his pet’s submission to the action. He knew that the earlier outburst would probably be the last for the night; it had been at least a half hour since he’d given his pet the doctored sugar cube, and the ecstasy should be kicking in any time now.

 

Still, as much as Cody was enjoying the way his pet leaned unconsciously towards the hand soaping up his dick, Cody also did want to get him clean again, so he left off, smiling at the way his pet’s hips stuttered forward for a second as if missing the contact.

 

Cody tossed the sponge in the soapy bucket and hefted up the bucket of clean water to rinse his pet off. With a grunt of effort, he lifted it up to shoulder level and began pouring it down onto his soapy pet in as steady a stream as possible. When he was satisfied no bubbles lingered on his pet’s skin, Cody set the bucket down with a huff and went to retrieve the plug. It had dried off, so he coated it until it was dripping with lube from one of the bottles he kept in the barn.

 

His pet was still gaping a little from before and didn’t have time to tighten up again before Cody thrust the plug back in without warning, though he did startle once the sudden stretch and fullness registered. “There you go,” Cody soothed, twitching the plug until the tail was aligned perfectly above the divide between his pet’s buttocks. His hand lingered on the stretched rim of his pet’s asshole a few more moments as he wiped away the excess lube, rubbing circles around where the plug’s base met skin to make sure he got most of it.

 

Wiping his fingers dry on a rag, Cody stepped back and inhaled. Sure enough, his pet smelled much better now, a little like natural musk and the straw he’d slept on, but mostly like the soap Cody had used.

 

Cody decided he’d give the drug a bit more time to kick in, so he shrugged his sweatshirt on over his wet shirt and left his pet standing there for the time being, turning the light out behind himself as he left the barn.

 

A bit less than an hour later, once Cody had changed and was sure his pet would be feeling the influence, he returned. Obviously, his pet was still in the same place, but his unfocused eyes and the way he reacted to Cody’s entrance with a startle and something like curiosity, rather than fear, told Cody that it was working.

 

“Hey there,” Cody greeted, petting his pet’s cheek fondly. His pet leaned into the gesture as if seeking out more contact, and Cody grinned. “Such a good boy,” he murmured. “If I let you lie down, will you be good for me?”

 

There was a pause, then his pet stomped a hoof.

 

Cody nodded and untied the reins. His pet had dried off completely in the warm air of the barn, so Cody would be able to give his pet his second treat. “Come on,” Cody urged, leading his pet over to the table. For a second, his pet hesitated, apparently remembering the trauma of being pinned to it and plugged up that morning, but Cody shushed him reassuringly, gently stroking his shoulders and back. Eventually, he got his pet bent over the table, resting his torso on it so that his weight was finally off his undoubtedly aching feet.

 

Once Cody had retrieved the bottle of horse liniment, he poured some into his hands and began rubbing it on his pet’s shoulders and back, essentially massaging him as he rubbed him down. All of it was mostly for Cody’s own benefit, he admitted to himself, since it kept his courser in good physical shape despite the rigorous training and it also gave him a chance to feel his pet up – he really had picked up some impressive muscle tone in the year since Cody had last seen him. Still, a side benefit of the rub-down was clear as Cody felt his pet begin to relax into the table under his hands, his breathing becoming slow and deep, little unconscious grunts of pleasure escaping his throat. Between the drug and the pleasant touches, his pet was beginning to actually enjoy the moment. If Cody could keep his pet confused and off-balance with alternations of pain and pleasure, he could break his pet’s lingering resistance faster, making training far easier.

 

“I’m taking care of your poor legs now,” Cody murmured once the shoulder muscles under his hands were finally as relaxed as they could be, given the arm binder. With a fresh handful of liniment, Cody made good on that, smearing the ointment onto stiff thighs and down to the calves, then rubbing at the corded muscles there. He chafed briskly at each calf until the skin was flushed and he could feel the muscles loosening, then moved up, doing both knees, then the lower thighs. As Cody continued, he could hear his pet beginning to forget himself, letting out loud pleasured sighs and, occasionally, as much of a whimper as he could produce.

 

By the time Cody had stood up to continue on to the upper thighs, his pet was nearly a puddle on the table. He took his time up there, kneading the outsides of both thighs simultaneously, digging in with fingers and thumbs for a good minute before reaching around to do the fronts of the thighs. As he worked his way up, the backs of his fingers brushed against his pet’s cock. It was already half-hard and his pet squirmed on the table at the contact, but Cody pretended not to notice.

 

His pet huffed and shifted a little in apparent disappointment when Cody dragged his hands back around his thighs to their backs, but Cody just smiled and began kneading the backs of the thighs, starting just above the knees and working his way up. “Such a good, good boy,” he murmured soothingly, filling the silence as he worked. His words as he continued were overlaid with his pet’s sounds, little huffs and squeaks when Cody worked out a particular knot, and breathy sighs once Cody’s thumbs had worked their way up to the inner thighs. “So pretty. So good for me, aren’t you. Such a pretty little reindeer, yeah.”

 

Finally, Cody’s hands were working on the muscles just under the curve of the ass. Slowly, almost making it seem like an accident, Cody let his thumbs creep further up and inward until they brushed against the plug’s base. His pet, lost in the haze of soothing words and pleasant touches and the drug, barely responded beyond a slight tightening of his ass around the plug. Cody kept up the kneading of his thighs and his cooed praises, and let his thumbs press at the plug a little more firmly. His pet grunted a little and rocked back towards the touch as much as he could.

 

Cody repeated the light pushes a few more times, careful not to brush the hurt skin around the plug, until his pet was wheezing and rhythmically rocking in place, greedily trying to get more of the sensation deep inside him. Then Cody gave up the pretense of a massage, finished with his pet’s muscles anyway. He laid the heel of a palm flat against the plug and began pressing it in more firmly, keeping with the same slow rhythm. His pet made a choked whimpering noise and tried to grind back towards Cody’s hand.

 

Wiping the last of the liniment off of his free hand onto a nearby rag, Cody reached around and snaked his hand under his pet’s body. “So good,” he repeated, grasping his pet’s hardened cock. For a second, Cody just held it, ignoring the way his pet was now nearly writhing on the table in surprise and an effort to push forward into Cody’s hand. Cody appreciated the weight and feel of it, definitely more impressive when hard in the warm barn than when cute and shrunken by the cold outside. He began stroking it loosely, hushing his pet and going torturously slow until he stopped trying to make Cody go faster and instead laid still and shaking, just taking the pleasure Cody was willing to give him.

 

Cody kept it up despite the crick developing in his wrist, until he felt his pet’s hips beginning to writhe again. When he dropped his hand from his pet’s dick to his sac, he could feel the balls beginning to draw up towards the body, so with one last soothing stroke, he pulled both hands away and wrapped his arms around his pet to haul him to his feet.

 

His pet blinked a few times and let out a wheeze of distress, but Cody just shook his head and smiled, pressing a fond kiss against the leather of the bridle.

 

“Time for good little reindeer to go to bed,” he said cheerfully, practically carrying his pet back to his stall. He tethered his pet standing up for the time being, while he emptied and refilled the water trough and scattered broken-up bits of food around the straw again.

 

His pet was still panting and dark-eyed, and when Cody came back and wrapped one arm around him, the other sneaking down to his tail, he could see his pet’s confused, hopeful expression even with the bit stretching his mouth. All Cody did was carefully pull the tail out, though, and his pet let out a protesting grunt. Cody shook his head fondly and undid the bit, curb chain, and reins.

 

His pet tried to stumble after him on wobbly legs as Cody left the stall, but Cody was faster and had the door closed and latched before he could manage more than two steps.

 

“Good night, Rudolph,” Cody said warmly, and left the barn.

 

That night, Cody was very glad he had invested in an infrared camera for the barn. He watched with great satisfaction as his pet, still achingly hard, stomped his hooves in frustration after Cody left, making his cock bob and jolt. From there, his pet spent a good half-hour trying to find a way to take care of himself without hands. He started by rubbing against things, only to discover that the straw was too scratchy, the walls too hard, and the trough uncomfortably cold. The attempt to lie on his back and jerk his hips upwards was futile, and Cody laughed, seeing his pet jump up in pain when his still-sore ass came in contact with the straw. Finally, his pet was forced to lie down in the straw on his side and stare into the darkness, eyes hazy, while his erection went down on its own.

 

Cody was woken up a few hours later by his phone beeping. He dragged himself out of bed and over to his laptop to see what his pet was up to that had triggered the motion sensor, but it just looked like the ecstasy had worn off. Now his pet was curled tightly around himself, shaking with sobs. Cody watched for a few more minutes until it was clear his pet was just going to cry himself to sleep, then went back to bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a graphic forced piercing scene in it.

In the morning, Cody was glad to note that some of the food that had been in the straw was gone. Since his pet was awake by the time he came in, Cody figured that he must have finally decided that having breakfast was worth the humiliation of kneeling down and eating from the floor like an animal.

 

His pet was subdued that day, no doubt from the events of the night before, but it only manifested in his training as a slight sullenness, and Cody was able to whip that out of him early on. By the end of the first hour, he was responding to commands as quickly as Cody could have wanted.

 

Cody repeated the pattern of the previous morning, with an hour of walking behind his pet and working on commands, two hours on the horse walker, and then a break. For the afternoon, he decided to move on to the next step. After his own lunch, Cody brought a contraption of red leather with him to the barn. It was a corset-like arrangement of straps, with an additional pair of straps running down the outsides of the thighs to bands around each upper thigh, and a heavy metal ring at each hip. Eventually, those rings would be the attachment points for the sleigh’s poles, but for now, he wanted his pet to get used to the harness. The exercise was the same as the previous day, but Cody could tell his pet was unnerved by the harness at first, so he was glad he’d decided to take it slow.

 

Nothing exceptional happened that night. Cody washed his pet down again and did an abbreviated version of the rub-down with liniment, but the sugar cube treat had no additives and he kept the groping to a minimum.

 

The next day saw Cody tacking his pet up in the harness first thing in the morning, along with the bit and reins. In the afternoon, Cody took it another step towards the eventual goal, and attached a long pole to each ring on the harness. The poles were joined by a crossbar in the middle, like an elongated H, to keep them a fixed distance apart and simulate pulling a sleigh – albeit a very light one, so far. His pet didn’t take to the addition very well, and Cody found himself having to apply the whip more than usual. Eventually, though, Cody had his pet walking and trotting in steady circles on the horse walker, the poles dragging lines in the snow behind him until they’d worn through to the frozen grass and dirt. Given the day’s resistance, Cody kept his pet at it for longer than usual, and by the time the sun went down behind the encircling trees, his pet was stumbling every few steps with exhaustion, unable to stop lest he get dragged by the bit. Cody gave his pet a stern look that night and put him down for the night in his stall without a washing or rub-down.

 

The rest of that week and part of the next continued on that way. Mornings were spent working on commands and working up to a trot, afternoons in endurance training. Every day or two, Cody would add something new – a weight attached to the poles to simulate a heavier load, then a series of heavier and heavier weights until Cody could see his pet straining at first to overcome the weight’s inertia and get moving, digging his hooves into the frozen ground for leverage and pulling desperately to avoid his bit being yanked at by the horse walker. Sure enough, Cody had been right about the hoof-boots actually helping with traction. Even with them, his pet had to lean forward onto the front tips to get the heaviest of the weights moving.

 

The length of the imitation-sleigh meant that Cody needed to switch to longer reins during commands training and he briefly worried that they would somehow mute his pulled commands, but it turned out that his sharp tugs on the reins affected his pet’s bit just the same as before. Really, the commands training ended up seeming a little redundant some mornings, since his pet remembered all the commands well enough. Cody eventually decided that taking the hour to work on taking direction was worth it, even if it was more a matter of making sure his pet would obey that day than reinforcement of the information.

 

His pet’s obedience did vary from day to day, but Cody was pleased with the overall trend. On nights following particularly good training sessions, Cody rewarded his pet with a laced sugar cube in place of a normal one and a more thorough rub-down than usual. Those nights, Cody had to remember to pace himself and not let his pet achieve orgasm, but it was becoming more difficult as his pet’s sexual frustration began to build, probably against his own wishes, judging by the mortification always evident on his face the next morning when Cody came to put in his tail and tack him up. Still, Cody could barely contain his satisfaction when, halfway into the second week, his pet’s dick filled a little before his rub-down even began, just at the scent of liniment and the touch of Cody’s hands.

 

Of course, there were bad days, too, including two nights that Cody caught his pet on camera searching for a way to escape his stall. Both mornings started with a thorough spanking and his pet barely managing to stagger through his first exercises before the winter cold could eventually numb his burning ass.

 

The third night it happened was the one after his pet had gotten hard so easily at just the promise of Cody’s touch. Cody had been woken up by his phone beeping, groaned, and checked his laptop, only to be met with the sight of his pet attempting to step up onto the water trough to get the height needed to see, or maybe try jumping, over the sides of his stall. Cody threw on his bathrobe and a coat and boots over that, and stormed out of the house.

 

When he threw the barn door open, he heard a clatter of the trough as his pet presumably tried and failed to get down quietly. Cody flipped the light switch and had the stall open before his pet could stop blinking at the sudden brightness. Without a word, Cody had his pet shoved face-first against one of the wooden walls and was laying strike after strike to his ass, harder than ever. His pet let out a strangled squeal, louder than before, and Cody was vaguely aware that he’d need to tend to his pet’s vocal cords again soon, but for the time being he concentrated on spanking his pet hard enough to make up for being woken up in the middle of yet another night.

 

“Naughty reindeer,” he nearly shouted, once he was sure his voice wouldn’t be slurred with sleep, though it still came out rough. “Naughty,  _bad_ reindeer, did you think you could get away with this  _again_?”

 

His pet was writhing against the wall, failing to squirm out of Cody’s relentless hold, tears leaking out of his eyes. There was no tail or plug in the way this time, so Cody was free to land blows on every inch of his pet’s ass without restriction, and soon even the small bits of skin that had escaped bruising in previous punishments were reddening painfully.

 

Palm stinging and arm aching, Cody still didn’t stop until his pet had gone limp against the wall, upright only due to Cody’s hold on him, and could only jerk and spasm with each spank to his now brick-red ass. Only then did Cody let him drop to the straw below, panting himself with the exertion. “ _Bad_ ,” he emphasized one more time, then stepped out of the stall, leaving his pet sobbing weakly on the floor.

 

There was no comfort to be had when Cody returned; he wordlessly picked his pet up and half-carried, half-dragged the weakly-resisting form over to the table, where he deposited him on his back, ignoring the cracked keening noise that resulted from his pet feeling his ass coming in contact with the rough wood. Cody didn’t waste time in getting his pet strapped down to the table, with scratchy ropes holding him down across the ankles, thighs, below his pectorals, and over his neck. Tears trickled down from the corners of his pet’s eyes and into his hair, but Cody ignored them and went about taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

 

“I wasn’t planning on doing this,” he said, almost to himself, though he could see his pet snap to attention in sudden fear at his words. “The  _plan_ was just to train you, then let you go after Christmas.” Cody set a few things down on the table with a ‘thunk,’ out of his pet’s sight. “But even though you knew that, you just keep on…” Cody took a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He could deal with his sleep being interrupted, but to have it happen again and again, and for his pet to behave so  _stupidly_ when Cody had been considerate enough to inform him that there was already an end date to this…

 

Letting a long breath out, Cody centered himself and reached for the bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball. He drenched the cotton, then reached over to briskly rub each of his pet’s nipples with it. They beaded up under the cold evaporation, and Cody was quick to reach for his tools before they could flatten out.

 

When his pet saw the heavy needle in Cody’s hands, he began to try to thrash against his bonds, but he was tied too tightly to be able to squirm away from the needle approaching one of his nipples. Cody ignored the squeaks and wheezed attempts at speech, and squeezed the nipple before inserting the needle with a quick jab. A hoarse almost-scream escaped his pet, and Cody reached for a second needle. The second one went in as effortlessly as the first, the bonds holding his pet firmly in place.

 

When Cody stepped back, his pet tensed, panting, clearly expecting something more. He was right. Cody came back with another soaked cotton ball and a curved needle, and proceeded to stand at the middle of the table, level with his pet’s groin. His pet was suddenly trying to thrash against his bonds even harder, knowing what was about to happen when Cody reached out with clinical hands and grabbed his limp penis with one, swabbing the underside and tip with the rubbing alcohol in the other.

 

Despite his half-paralyzed vocal cords, his pet managed to howl when Cody worked the curved needle into his urethra and then down and out through the underside of his dick’s head.

 

From there, Cody made quick work of sliding the actual piercings into place, his pet’s sobbing and occasional whines acting as a backdrop. When he was finished, his pet had gold rings almost an inch in diameter hanging from both nipples and the head of his penis, the skin around each site inflamed and almost as red as his ass. Cody poured a bit more alcohol onto each site to make sure they were clean, ignoring the strangled half-cry he got as a result each time.

 

Cody left his pet on the table to spend the rest of the night, and only brought him into his stall the next morning to close the door and latch it, planning to give his pet’s new jewelry time to heal.

 

He spent that day planning, going over maps of The Knolls and information on the families who lived there until his head swirled with it, even though part of him wished he was out in the cold crisp air, watching his pet trot through the corral.

 

He didn’t visit his pet in the evening, even to drop off food, and he waited until the camera showed that his confused, frightened pet had fallen into a deep sleep before sneaking into the barn and injecting his pet with a narcotic, just like he had after his acquisition.

 

Once his pet was really and truly under, Cody took the opportunity to undo the taped-up arm binder for the first time, making sure there was no permanent damage being done. Satisfied that the arms were fine, although the skin had gotten a bit pasty from lack of air and sun, he did the binder up again and re-taped it so his pet would never know it had been off. He repeated the process with each boot, grimacing a little at the smell of unwashed feet after so long, but when he was done, there was nothing to tell either boot had been disturbed. He also carefully swabbed each piercing with hydrogen peroxide and turned it, glad to see that the inflammation was already going down.

 

Then it was time for the vocal cords to be treated again. Cody repeated what he’d done before, laying his pet on the table with his head dangling from the edge, and injected one of the folds with a paralytic. When it was done, Cody wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. He wouldn’t wait so long next time before the re-application, he decided. His pet had come too close to forming actual words in the previous days, and Cody had a feeling it helped his pet’s mental state to be unable to communicate in human ways.

 

Feeling better, Cody returned his pet to his stall, latched the door, and returned to the warm house.

 

His pet watched him warily when Cody came in the next morning, but all Cody said was, “Are you going to be good today?” and looked patiently at his pet until he received one stomp of a hoof in return. Tacked up and harnessed to the faux sleigh, his pet was quiet and well-behaved in training. He didn’t fuss when Cody added another weight to the poles that afternoon, only stared into the distance and did what Cody directed him to.

 

When Cody had led his pet back to the barn late that afternoon and was in the process of unhitching him from the poles, he paused for a second, then murmured, “You were a very good reindeer today. If you keep it up, you’ll definitely be released after Christmas. Do you think you can do that?”

 

His pet startled, and stomped a hoof vigorously.

 

Cody smiled. “Good boy.”


	6. Chapter 6

Training went more smoothly from then on. His pet seemed more subdued and far more willing to cooperate, and there were no more escape attempts.

 

The other upside to the final escape debacle was that Cody was enjoying his pet’s new piercings. He took to hanging little jingle bells on them, first as a part of his tack like the harness and bit, but after two days of this, he found that he liked them so much he left them on at all times.

 

Something in him was warmed by the sweet jingle he heard from the stall in the mornings, signaling his pet had gotten to his feet upon hearing the barn door open. Cody also couldn’t help but smile at the sound of bells ringing merrily every time his pet shook under his hands during his rub-downs. Cody knew he’d have to remove the bells when he wanted to practice stealth, but for training, he let himself have some fun.

 

He also took some extra time to reinforce his pet’s obedience by reminding him of his status. For a few days in a row, and every night after that he could manage, he stuck around the barn after putting his pet down for the night, puttering around and re-organizing things, or taking care of his pet’s tack and cleaning and servicing the set of tools he’d brought in.

 

At first, his pet had stayed crouched leaning against the side of his stall, refusing to eat his dinner or go to sleep with Cody in the barn, and Cody could feel his pet’s eyes following him warily. Eventually, though, his pet had apparently gotten used to him or at least been hungry enough to act as though Cody wasn’t there after he’d been shut in, and Cody had been able to hear straw rustling and the bells jingling as his pet went about his own simpler nighttime rituals.

 

Once that was established, Cody took it a step further and began coming over after a few minutes of leaving him alone to openly watch his pet. The first time, his pet had mostly just stared back, spooked by the attention, but after that, Cody was treated to his pet apparently resigning himself to the attention and behaving as normal.

 

After being closed in – on nights when he wasn’t squirming in unfulfilled ecstasy after being given a laced sugar cube, anyway – his pet set about eating the food Cody had tossed him. Cody had chosen the emergency ration bars because they would give his pet all the nutrition he needed and he’d picked the ones with the highest protein content possible, wanting his pet to build up the muscle needed to pull a laden sleigh when the time came. Also, the bars were dry and nonperishable, so Cody could just stock up on them and not worry about making supply trips. As a bonus the makers certainly hadn’t intended, the dry, bland bars did closely resemble some sort of animal feed when broken into chunks and scattered on the floor, like Cody did every night.

 

At first, his pet had been careful while eating, aware of Cody’s eyes on him when he lowered himself to his knees and ducked down to nose through the straw in search of food. He adopted an adorably self-conscious posture with his knees held tightly together, though it meant he had to awkwardly splay his feet wide apart behind him to keep his balance every time he bent down pick up a piece of food with his mouth. Cody still enjoyed the view, since even that relatively modest position put his pet’s ass high in the air. The marked-up skin easily drew the eye as the brightest patch of color in the stall, besides his pet’s red bridle and glinting gold bells.

 

After a few days of this watching, though, his pet apparently grew used enough to Cody’s presence to forget himself and stopped bothering to hold his knees so close together. Instead, he went back to what had probably been his habitual position before, knees splayed wide so that he could easily root around in the straw without wobbling. He still blushed a little at first, but reacted with learned indifference to the way Cody would spend most of the time watching his ass sway in the air, balls and belled penis clearly visible dangling between his thighs and his cheeks spread apart by the position, still-lubricated and gaping asshole completely on display.

 

Those nights, Cody palmed himself a little out of his pet’s sight, but he made sure his pet had no idea that he was going to go jerk off the second he was back in the house.

 

Less sexy in Cody’s eyes, but somehow just as gratifying, was the day his pet either could no longer hold it or was just comfortable enough in his presence to trot over to the corner Cody knew he used as a toilet after raking out the soiled straw every morning, and spread his legs to piss in the straw, fully aware that Cody was staring at him the whole time. Cody took care not to show any reaction when his pet hesitantly glanced at him afterward, a ghost of shame in his eyes. A reindeer didn’t need to feel shame over its bodily functions, though, so Cody treated it as part of the natural order of things, and his pet came to do the same over the days following that. It had taken weeks to reach that point, but a deep feeling of satisfaction settled into Cody’s bones, and a new confidence underlay his actions from then on.

 

Throughout the first two weeks, Cody had been finishing up his sleigh during breaks from training his pet. It had been mostly finished by November, but Cody needed it to be perfect for Christmas Eve, just as he would need his pet to be perfectly well trained. It was lightweight and mostly made of aluminum, except for the sturdier runners supporting it below, and he’d modified it to be slightly narrower and longer than the “standard” sleigh – this particular Santa was fit enough that he didn’t need a particularly wide seat, but he would need the extra space in the back for his sack of new toys. He’d taken the time to paint it a pretty white with dark green trimming, for winter camouflage as much as for the Christmas-themed aesthetics.

 

The first time his pet saw it, sitting prettily outside the corral in the morning sun, Cody saw his pet startle, but was pleased when there was no further reaction beyond his pet eyeing it warily.

 

His pet’s bells jingled a little when Cody hitched him up to the faux sleigh poles with the heaviest weight, but Cody conducted training that morning as if there was nothing different going on, and his pet learned to ignore the sleigh and concentrate on Cody’s commands with only a handful of whip marks being added to his permanently-bruised ass.

 

The sleigh finally came into play that afternoon. Instead of leading his pet into the corral and hitching him to the faux sleigh poles and then the horse walker, Cody led him instead to stand between the shafts of the sleigh. There was a tinkling of bells as his pet shook for a second from the newness of it, but he stayed still and wide-eyed, and allowed Cody to attach the sleigh’s shafts to the rings on his harness.

 

Cody stepped back for a moment to admire the sight, long reins still gripped firmly in his hand in case his pet should forget his training and try to bolt in panic – it seemed very unlikely by now, but Cody hadn’t gotten where he was by underestimating his marks.

 

The whole thing was charmingly seasonal – the white and green sleigh attached to his red and pale and chestnut reindeer, bells whispering silvery notes as his pet shivered habitually in the cold, and the snow laying all around. Cody sighed deeply in satisfaction, feeling everything coming together.

 

Once he’d jumped up into his seat in the sleigh, reins in one hand and whip in the other, Cody wasted no time snapping the reins and urging his pet forward. His pet immediately began to pull with a jingle of bells, jolting a little in surprise at how easily the sleigh moved. It did look fairly solid, Cody admitted with pride, but the smoothness of the runners on the snow and the light construction meant that it was barely more difficult to pull than the weights they’d been training with.

 

For that first afternoon, Cody kept their path to loops around the corral, then around the corral and barn, then the entire cleared property. His pet had been conditioned enough by the long hours on the horse walker that he was able to pull the sleigh without much more effort, obediently speeding up or returning to a walk at Cody’s direction. Cody grinned into the cold wind that whipped at his face during the ride, exhilarated.

 

“Good boy,” he praised when he finally called a halt to the day’s exercise, shadows dipping long across the property. He hopped out of the sleigh and led his pet by the reins to the shed where he’d been keeping the sleigh, then had his pet back up until the sleigh was “parked” properly. “Such a good boy,” he said again, unhitching his pet and leading him back to the barn. His pet seemed relieved and very nearly pleased by the praise, and Cody made sure to give him two sugar cubes that night, one laced, one not, and brought him very close to orgasm in reward.

 

From then on, Cody changed the usual schedule slightly. He began to shift the afternoon training a bit later every day, until they were consistently starting after the sun had set. The first hour of the new evening training was around the house, barn, and corral, near enough to be within the area lit by the barn and house’s floodlights. After that, though, he began to drive his pet into the woods surrounding the property.

 

It was difficult at first, and he had to go slowly and be careful not to let his pet stumble over something and break an ankle. With time, though, his pet became better at navigating at night. The waxing moon reflected off the snow and made things bright enough that his pet gradually became able to distinguish between a fallen branch or root, which had to be jumped over, and the dark shadow of a branch overhead, which obviously did not.

 

Cody let these night rides last for as long as possible before turning back, both to build up his pet’s endurance and nighttime navigation ability, and for the simple pleasure of listening to the quiet music made from the swish of the runners on snow, the crack of twigs, his pet’s huffs of breath, and the ever-present jingling bells in the otherwise-silent forest.

 

Once navigation was no longer an issue, Cody began to add extra weights to the sleigh, piling them into the space in the back where his loot would eventually go. His pet adjusted to the increased difficultly with only the most minor encouragement of the whip, though, and Cody congratulated himself again on the training and his choice of this particular reindeer.

 

By the time only a few days remained until Christmas Eve, Cody was feeling cautiously optimistic about his chances. He’d done everything in his power to optimize his chances of the all-important night going well, and he felt especially good about his means of transportation.

 

He doubted his pet knew exactly how many days remained to his captivity, since Cody had been very careful to not mention any dates or allow him glimpses of a calendar or something similar, but his pet had remained largely obedient since Cody had given him his rings, anyway. Just in case, though, Cody had added blinkers to his pet’s bridle for the last week of training and had taken to making stops at random places in the woods for long periods of time until his pet was shivering violently, essentially rehearsing for when he’d need to leave his pet tethered in place while he ventured inside his targets’ houses.

 

Finally, the night came.


	7. Chapter 7

Cody was careful to treat it the same as any other night. He did need to remove his pet’s bells, but his pet had grown used to that over the last two nights and had accepted it easily as yet another change in his tack that he didn’t understand, but Cody did. He hitched his pet to the sleigh, empty sacks already resting in the back compartment, and snapped the reins, guiding his pet carefully out into the moonlit woods along a route Cody had figured out weeks ago.

 

The woods were quiet as they wound between the trees, only the soft sounds of hoof-falls and the sleigh’s passage marring the silence. Even those noises seemed to be swallowed up by the snow.

 

Cody firmly and expertly directed his pet as usual, so it was always Cody making the choice of when and how to turn to avoid the trees, never his pet needing to make a decision. It was admittedly taxing, but Cody enjoyed the way he could be distracted from the hint of nervousness for the upcoming events, his focus narrowed down to his pet and their surroundings and keeping the sleigh on its predetermined course, while his pet thought solely of obeying every twitch of the reins.

 

The ride was long, passing through miles of forest and a couple of fallow fields overgrown with tall weeds bent by the snow, but Cody handled his courser and the sleigh with the ease of long practice, and he had his pet slow to a walk as the first lights appeared faintly between the trees ahead.

 

Cody had his pet bring them in at an angle, both to avoid the road leading towards The Knolls, and to keep his blinkered pet from getting a head-on view of the development. He was certain his pet wouldn’t want to be discovered by a wealthy homeowner in his current state, but he didn’t want to give his pet too much to think about, either.

 

When they were finally close enough to the first house, Cody grinned in sudden exhilaration. Excitement tingled through him as he reined his reindeer to a halt, then tethered him closely to a nearby tree, his pet’s nose reddened by the cold and nearly pressed against the bark by the reins’ shortness. The usual thrill of a heist took over, and Cody left him there and headed in.

 

The actual robberies were shockingly easy. The homeowners and developers seemed not to have expected an approach from the thick forest abutting their property, especially since they were so remote from any other major town. As a result, the security systems of the houses, once inside the walls cutting them off from the road, were at best subpar, given the expensive contents of the homes. It was a quick in-and-out for the first two empty houses, both sets of homeowners gone to winter somewhere warmer.

 

Cody went straight to his work once he’d broken in, and left both with sacks bulging with electronics, cash, jewelry, and art, which he piled into the back of the sleigh. Then he untied his shivering pet and had him pull the sleigh a little farther along through the woods, stopping between the next pair of houses and repeating the process.

 

Even the homes with tenants present and nestled snug in their beds proved little challenge. Cody was silent and quick, and he deftly relieved them of their valuables without even waking the children waiting eagerly for a sign of Santa. Even had they woken up, Cody wouldn’t have been worried – he’d dressed for the occasion, if in a little more child-friendly a way than the previous year.

 

Helping himself to a few of the cookies left out at the last house, Cody snuck out the back door with his last bag of loot, tossed it into the back of the laden sleigh, and untethered his reindeer from the tree. His pet seemed anxious and cold and glad to move, so he got moving eagerly when Cody snapped the reins against his shoulders. As clouds moved over the midday-bright moon and snow began to fall, they drove out of sight.


	8. Chapter 8

When they got back to the property again, the sleigh and his pet’s hair dusted in snow, the melt-water running off his pet’s skin in rivulets, Cody let himself let out a loud, triumphant belly laugh. With the heavy load of goodies in the back and the new-fallen snow covering the sleigh’s tracks, it was looking like a merry Christmas, indeed.

 

Still, Cody had things to do, and he set about backing the sled into its shed before conscientiously leading his panting, shivering pet back to the barn, where he tethered him in his stall for the time being to warm up. Then it was time to handle his new toys, and Cody made many careful trips back and forth between the shed and the house, bringing each sack in. He made a cursory search of the contents of each one again; he’d already turned off all electronics before taking them, making sure they wouldn’t give his location away after all the trouble he’d already gone through, but it was worth a second check. Satisfied that he was completely safe from discovery even when the missing items were reported, Cody sorted them into rough piles for the time being and locked them away in the windowless root cellar he’d cleared especially for this purpose.

 

And then it was time to bed his reindeer down for the night. His pet seemed to suspect that something significant had happened that night, but appeared to wearily accept that it was Cody’s business, not his. Cody gave his pet a normal sugar cube and a long, but largely non-sexual rub-down, working out the tenseness that had developed in his legs and back over the course of the long night. Cody found some pride in the fact that the muscles under his hands had developed noticeably since his pet had arrived – the calves and thighs were corded with thicker muscle than before, and even the ass was harder and more pert, though it was hard to tell under the patchwork of colors and stripes that made up the skin covering it. He led his exhausted pet back to the stall without fanfare and shut him in for the rest of the night before going to get some sleep for himself.

 

When Cody woke late the next morning, he laid quietly in bed for a few minutes, taking in the remembered thrill of a successful heist and listening superstitiously for the police knocking at the door. When there was no sound beyond the rattle of the house’s ancient heating system, Cody grinned so wide it felt like it would split his face.

 

It was a wonderful Christmas morning.

 

When he checked the news on his phone over coffee, Cody found his grin growing. The news of a Christmas Eve robbery of an entire development had made national headlines, but reading the articles gave Cody even more of a sense of security. The speculation ran wild about how it had been achieved, but most assumed it was a group effort. Halfway through his breakfast, a flurry of updates popped up that made him laugh all over again. A picture of him had been caught on one house’s security camera, after all, but he’d been prepared for that – not even his closest relative would have recognized him under the baggy Santa suit and face-obscuring fake beard.

 

All the public notice would mean operating carefully when selling the stolen goods, but he had already worked out plans with his fence across the border in Canada, and they were prepared for that. Now all he had to do was lay low for a few weeks, then come back to retrieve his loot so he could get to the real work of getting rich.

 

He just had two things to take care of, before that. First, he needed to get the house and barn looking from the outside like they were the same dilapidated structures he’d bought in the first place. That shouldn’t be hard work, though, since most of Cody’s renovations had been on the insides, and no one would be able to enter to see those without a warrant – and why would they care enough about this place to go that far? And second, Cody would need to deal with his little reindeer.

 

Cody wondered for a brief second if there wasn’t a way he could arrange to keep him – the last month had been exquisitely enjoyable, after all. But thinking logically, Cody knew it would be impractical. He needed to be able to go on the run once all his goods had been turned into liquid cash, and carrying along a pet would interfere with that. Passing him off to a friend was an option, of course, but the friend who’d shown an interest wouldn’t be available to do a pick-up for at least two weeks, and Cody needed to be lying low – alone – before then. Cody sighed in regret, considering the impossibility of that option. He probably could have even made a profit on the transaction, or asked for visiting rights every once in a while. As it was, though, Cody would just have to make the most of his Christmas reindeer.

 

With that in mind, Cody finished his breakfast and headed out to the barn, a bag of useful aids swung over his shoulder.

 

His pet was still drowsing when he entered, no doubt worn out by the longer night than usual. Cody opened the stall door and crept closer, letting his steps rustle the straw as little as possible, enjoying the sight of his pet in peaceful slumber, nipple rings glinting as his chest slowly rose and fell.

 

Cody was especially pleased to see that his pet had morning wood that particular morning. Where he usually would have ignored it, preferring to get to the day’s training and letting his pet gradually forget to be embarrassed by his body’s natural functions, today he carefully ran his fingers over it, stilling when his pet twitched in his sleep, then kept petting it, letting his strokes become more purposeful each time, until his pet was breathing hard and twitching his hips unconsciously. When it looked like his pet was getting close to either wakefulness or orgasm, Cody drew his hand back and stepped away, shuffling loudly as if he was just entering the stall.

 

His pet jerked awake at that, disoriented and still flushed in sleepy arousal.

 

Cody smiled warmly at his pet, throwing out a cheerful, “Good morning, Rudolph,” and leaned over his pet to put in his bit. By now, his pet had learned to open his mouth to receive it without prompting, and Cody had it between his pet’s teeth and attached to the bridle without any fuss. It was followed by the curb chain and reins. Cody kept standing over his pet, not giving him the instruction to stand, so his pet laid still in unthinking compliance as Cody hooked the trio of bells to the rings on his nipples and still-hard dick.

 

With that done, Cody backed up and tugged on the reins so his pet would stand. His pet struggled to his feet with a lengthy jingle of bells, still clumsy at the motion without his arms, no matter how much practice he got. Cody turned him to face the wooden side of the stall with businesslike quickness and his pet, knowing what was next, stayed resignedly still, although his hips twitched slightly with sensitivity, setting the bells going again, when the head of his dick brushed the wall.

 

Cody took his time to carefully lubricate the tail-plug, and once lube was nearly running off it, he arranged it at the bottom of the curve of his pet’s ass and pushed it in with the ease of experience. His pet accepted it just as easily, even pushing back a little to help ease it in. Cody twitched the tail into place at the small of his pet’s back, then gave the plug a sharp tap in reward for being so helpful. There was a tinkle of bells and Cody grinned, seeing that the cause was his pet’s cock twitching with interest.

 

“You’ve been such a good boy lately,” Cody said, as if musing aloud. He tugged the reins lightly until his pet turned away from the wall and followed him to the center of the barn. “I think you deserve a little present for it today.” He slung the reins up and over a hook on the ceiling and tied them off. He wanted his pet standing for now, though that wouldn’t last for too long.

 

His pet seemed a little wary at the change in routine, but accepted the first sugar cube Cody pressed past his bit, then, with unthinking pleasure, the second one. Cody supposed that with only the bland emergency ration bars to eat, his pet must have come to crave any variation in taste he could get. This time, though, both cubes were doctored – one with the usual ecstasy, the other with a crushed-up little blue pill.

 

Without another word, Cody patted his pet’s cheek and then left the barn as if going to get something. Really, he just wanted to give the drugs some time to kick in, so he spent a leisurely hour confirming details with his fence and giving his mother a Christmas morning phone call, all the while keeping an eye on his tethered pet on the barn’s camera.

 

When the hour had passed and his conversation with his mother was winding down, Cody said a fond farewell and hung up, grinning at the scene on his laptop. His pet was obviously under the influence of both drugs already. While his erection had gone down a little after Cody left, it was coming back, and his drug-addled pet seemed to have figured out that if he twisted or rocked his hips in place, he could set the bell on his dick piercing to jingling, sending vibrations into the head of his penis. His cock had already filled part of the way, and Cody suspected that with the recent deprivation, his pet could get all the way there if Cody let him. But that wouldn’t be as much fun for Cody, so he headed back to the barn.

 

“Hi there,” Cody cooed as he entered. His pet’s movements slowed, but didn’t come to a complete stop until Cody came over and wrapped an arm around his middle. “Hold still,” he instructed. “I need to clean you up, and it’s much harder to wash squirmy little reindeer. Are you going to be a good boy and hold still for me?”

 

His pet squirmed for a second in his hold, but stomped a hoof once. Cody grinned and filled up the usual two buckets of water, adding soap and the sponge to one.

 

He took care not to linger too much while soaping down his pet, not wanting to overstimulate the poor thing just yet. Even with Cody’s efforts to keep it nonsexual, his pet’s cock was stiff and red by the end of it, and even the cascade of lukewarm water to rinse him off couldn’t calm him down.

 

With his pet smelling better and susceptible to the slightest touch, though, Cody figured he’d made himself wait long enough.

 

Using the usual pretense of a rub-down, Cody started on his pet’s shoulders and back, patiently getting the muscles there as loose as they would go before he moved on to the calves, then around the knees, then up to the thighs. By the time Cody’s hands were a few inches from his ass, his pet was giving the occasional shudder of arousal, his cock hard and angled almost parallel to the ground.

 

Cody started his usual routine once his hands were close enough to contact the plug, pressing it in with rhythmic motions, then twisting it so he could get a good grip and actually pumping it a little. He stopped as soon as his pet seemed to be getting close, and went back to massaging his pet’s thighs, ignoring his pet’s frustrated stomping.

 

Once he thought his pet had cooled down enough, Cody took out the special treat he’d brought along. He pushed a button and the vibrator hummed to life. His pet didn’t have a chance to do more than perk up at the sound before the vibrator was pressed to the base of the plug, sending vibrations deep into him everywhere the plug touched his stretched insides. Cody had to wrap an arm around his pet quickly to keep his pet from falling as he utterly lost control of his muscles, knees buckling under him. Cody had to hold his pet’s entire weight for a second, but the pull on his bit from above soon had his pet shakily getting his hooves under himself again, though Cody could feel his pet’s shudders threatening to throw him off balance again the longer the vibrator made the plug buzz.

 

Cody felt a warm glow of satisfaction at the response, and only pulled the vibrator away – to his pet’s wordless protest – when it looked like he was getting too close too fast. He took to pressing the vibrator back to the plug every few minutes, giving his pet time to recover in between almost-orgasms, but never letting his pet go over that cliff, until he was perpetually shivering and breaths punched out of him in little pants. Cody grinned at the flush prickling his pet’s skin from face down to the chest and the way his pet constantly tried to push back onto the vibrator whether it was there or not, practically in rut.

 

Out of curiosity after the first three missed orgasms, Cody tried bringing the vibrator around to his pet’s front and touching it to the bell on his penis. The effect was immediate. The vibrations set the bell to jingling constantly, practically jumping off the surface of the vibrator only to swing back onto it, and the vibrations and mad swaying must have passed through the ring directly into his pet’s dick, because his pet almost jumped out of his skin and was panting even harder for breath within seconds, only able to stay in place due to Cody’s arm around him.

 

Soon, his pet’s cock was twitching by itself, and Cody snatched the vibrator away. He hushed his pet, petting his neck and shoulders to soothe him down from the brink, his pet nearly in tears from the denied release. “Good boy, being so good for me,” he murmured over and over. “Such a good boy.”

 

He turned the vibrator to its lowest setting and touched it to the plug again, sending low vibrations into his pet’s stuffed ass. “See, good boys get presents,” he said into his pet’s ear from behind. His pet’s eyes rolled back again, tears forgotten, and he huffed in renewed bliss. Cody wasn’t sure that he’d been heard or understood, but he still smiled at the reaction. He turned the vibrations up a notch, and just when his pet was starting to jerk his hips back towards the source of his pleasure, Cody withdrew the vibrator. He was sure that if his pet could make sounds, he would have whined.

 

Cody hushed his pet again, smiling. “Does my good reindeer want it back?”

 

His pet, lost in the drugs and suspended in pleasure, stomped a hoof once.

 

Cody praised him again and put the vibrator back, pushing at the plug a little with his fingers as well, so that it pumped in slightly at the same time as vibrating. His pet was nearly limp in his hold and wheezing for breath, all his bells jingling as he shook with arousal.

 

Just when he seemed to be on the brink, Cody pulled the vibrator away again and clicked it off. His pet didn’t even seem to notice for a second, then turned a little to look at Cody, almost distraught. “Shh,” Cody soothed him, stroking firmly around where the plug stretched him with his fingertips. “You’re being so good. Do you want more?”

 

His pet stomped once.

 

“Do you want Santa’s cock? Do you want to get to come from Santa’s cock?” Cody cooed.

 

His pet stomped immediately, then seemed to hesitate, a bit of sense creeping through his muddled mind. Cody hushed him and reached around to flick the bell on his cock again, making it ring merrily and send little vibrations through his pet’s most sensitive part. His pet shivered, and Cody moved his hand to wrap it around his cock, stroking once and then just holding it. “Does my good reindeer want Santa’s cock?” he asked again.

 

Whatever reluctance had made itself known receded again, and his pet stomped a hoof obediently.

 

“Good boy,” Cody praised him, and stroked his dick a few more times until he was shaking again.

 

He let go only long enough to push his elastic-waisted pants down below his balls, the fake fur waistband snugging nicely up below them, then went back to tapping on the plug’s base for a minute. When his pet was slumping a little in his hold and certainly relaxed enough, Cody carefully gripped the base of the plug and twisted until it came out, dropping it carelessly in the straw. There were more pressing issues at hand, so to speak.

 

He didn’t think he’d need much lube, with how wide his pet was stretched by the plug, but he reached out and awkwardly squeezed a good amount into his palm one-handed all the same, stroking it onto himself eagerly.

 

His pet was already shifting a little in impatience by the time Cody fed his dick inside. It went easily, his pet’s asshole stretching to let him in, well trained by the last month with the plug. His pet seemed a little startled by the difference in feeling between the plug he’d been used to and a warm, living cock, but he still pressed back onto it automatically, making the penetration easier on himself as he’d learned to do every morning.

 

Once inside, Cody ground his hips in slow circles at first. His pet tried to twitch away in discomfort from Cody’s balls and pants making contact with the damaged skin of his ass, but Cody hauled him back onto his dick easily, and the friction on his sensitive rim seemed enough to placate his pet and distract him from the pain. “So good,” Cody groaned, pushing in and out in tiny motions.

 

His pet’s ass was cinched tight around him, but not so tight as to be painful, and Cody savored the grip on his cock as he eased his pet back and forth on the bottom couple of inches, taking the time to also enjoy the heat encasing the head of his cock deep inside. His pet was squirming a little in pleasure, but didn’t fight the way Cody moved him back and forth, his hands gripping his pet’s hips.

 

His pet’s dick had softened the tiniest bit while Cody had been getting used to being inside him, so Cody let go with one hand, still grinding his hips in shallowly, and lightly flicked the bell on his pet’s dick a few times. His pet startled and clenched down tighter around Cody’s cock, his nipple bells jingling in time with his full-body spasms. Satisfied with his pet’s renewed interest, Cody returned his hand to his pet’s hip and started lengthening and deepening his thrusts.

 

His pet’s ass welcomed him so warmly, so snug and wet inside, that Cody was soon giving it to his pet as hard as he dared. His calves and thighs burned with the effort of keeping standing, nothing to brace against but his weak-kneed pet, but he couldn’t bring himself to slow down, quickly growing addicted to the gorgeous friction of his pet’s asshole cinched around him as he pounded into it.

 

His pet nearly lost his balance at a particularly hard thrust and Cody impatiently undid the knot in his reins and untethered him, his rhythm stuttering a little from the distraction. No longer held up by the bit, the next time his pet wobbled, it made him drop to his knees, wheezing in surprise and pain as he slipped off Cody’s dick and landed on his knees in the straw.

 

Cody shook his head a little, but quickly knelt down behind his pet, kicking his pet’s knees apart and angling himself so he could push his cock back into his pet’s ass. It took a few tries to get the position right, but soon enough Cody had his pet bent over so he could fuck in harder than ever. His pet’s hips would probably have slid down to the floor, boneless as he’d gone with helpless arousal, but they were firmly held up by Cody’s hands and dick. His position had his head down, though, face turned to the side so that one cheek was constantly abraded by the straw as Cody’s thrusts rocked his body back and forth.

 

With his pet down on the floor, ass in Cody’s hands, Cody could finally ride him as hard as he wanted. He worked his cock in his pet’s ass until he could feel sweat running down his own temples and back under his shirt. His pet was sweating, too, as hard as he did for the most vigorous trot on the horse walker, and Cody’s hands on his hips nearly slipped once or twice. Cody’s own grunts and groans of pleasure were nearly drowned out by the constant merry jingle of the bells and his pet’s labored panting, interrupted by broken wheezes when Cody angled his cock at the right spot. His pet’s body was pliant in his hands but constantly in motion, ass muscles clenching under their blanket of bruises, thighs tensing in the attempt to greedily rock back and get more of Cody’s dick, shivers wracking him every so often as he writhed in the straw. Cody could see spit dripping from the corner of his pet’s mouth as it went slack around the bit, wetting the straw below.

 

Cody cursed and went faster, feeling his own orgasm begin to build. His balls felt hot and tight, and it wouldn’t take much more of feeling his pet’s ass finally swallowing his dick up before he’d blow.

 

His pet’s shivers were becoming more frequent, and Cody found the angle that produced them and held his pet there, jabbing his dick inside almost ferociously until his pet was writhing madly in his hands. Finally, his pet’s back went tense and he managed a sound almost like a long sob. His asshole contracted around Cody in spasms and his hips nearly jerked out of Cody’s hold.

 

Cody didn’t need to see the soiled straw below to know that his pet had come from just his cock, and that knowledge gave him the extra boost he needed to thrust wildly into his pet for a few more moments before his vision went white and he came, himself, letting the pleasure overwhelm him as his cock spurted deep inside his pet.

 

Cody slumped back, letting his cock drag back out of his pet’s asshole, leaving a dribble of white trailing down his pet’s thigh. He sat back and breathed heavily for a moment, ignoring his pet’s slow breathing, as if he’d passed out. When his head finally felt clear, Cody wiped his cock head with his hand, then wiped his hand in the straw and tucked himself back into his pants, shifting a little as his sensitive dick came in contact with the fake fur inside.

 

His pet was still lying slumped where Cody had left him, and Cody got to his feet before grabbing his pet’s reins and tugging at them lightly.

 

“Up you get, Rudolph,” he said as brusquely as he could manage with his throat still feeling dry and his legs a little jelly-like. “Come on, be a good boy.”

 

His pet gradually seemed to blink himself awake and struggled his way up, wobbling on unsteady legs. Even with a mouth stretched by the bit, Cody could see the look of orgasm-induced dopiness on his face, and he had to grin, reaching out to ruffle his pet’s hair.

 

For some reason, that seemed to wake his pet up a bit, and a crease suddenly appeared between his pet’s eyebrows, even through the continuing effects of the drugs.

 

Before that could go any farther, Cody reached out and flicked one of his nipple rings, making his pet jump a little and distracting him. “Such a good reindeer you are,” Cody crooned. He tugged his pet towards himself with the reins and wrapped an arm around him fondly, as one might hug an especially treasured beast of burden. “Such a good reindeer.”

 

His pet leaned into the warmth and support a little, and Cody smiled. His pet would start coming down from the ecstasy soon, but Cody had gotten the last thing he needed from his little reindeer, and it was just about time to wrap things up.


	9. Chapter 9

His pet went back to his stall quite easily, still a little loose and hazy from his orgasm, and Cody left him there to go finish getting things ready for his departure.

 

The improvements to the horse walker had to come off, though Cody stored the mechanical bits in the root cellar, knowing a few people who might appreciate the gift. The recent snowfall had covered the disturbances to the snow from the month’s training, so Cody at least didn’t have to bother evening things out there. He packed the things he’d brought and loaded them into the rental car, then visited the barn briefly, just to take down the cameras so he could install them in the root cellar with his stolen goods, instead. Making sure and doubly-sure that the root cellar was secured, Cody shut off the lights and heat, closed the curtains, and locked up the house.

 

Cody heaved a sigh, the breath turning to mist and floating away. From outside, the house looked just as it had when he’d first visited, as did the barn. He’d already locked up the shed with the sleigh, and padlocked it again for good measure. All that was left was his pet. Cody grabbed a couple of items from the car and headed back to the barn.

 

Just like in his last short visit, his pet was drowsing in the straw. Cody snapped a few pictures with his phone for the hell of it, even though he’d already made sure to save the security camera’s recordings of the last few days, and he planned on editing them down to the good bits for his own archives later.

 

His pet didn’t stir until Cody tugged at his reins and issued an “Up you get.”

 

With his pet on his feet, Cody led him on a circuit of the inside of the barn, then ran through a series of commands for old times’ sake. His pet seemed confused by the unusual change in routine, but obeyed readily, well trained and well aware of the whip in Cody’s other hand. Finally, Cody had his pet standing back in the middle of the barn, and knew he couldn’t keep stalling.

 

“Such a good boy,” he said. “Are you my good Christmas reindeer?”

 

His pet stomped once.

 

Cody sighed, and went as if to hug his pet, then stuck a syringe in his neck, injecting the usual narcotic.

 

His pet, of course, didn’t remember any of the previous times he’d been injected and immediately panicked, barely staying in place despite Cody’s firm hold on both him and his reins. Eventually, though, the drug kicked in and his pet passed out.

 

Cody lowered his pet to the floor and began divesting him of his tack. The tail was still out on the straw nearby, and Cody collected it in the bag he’d brought along for this purpose. He took his pet’s bit out next, the curb chain and reins following into the bag, then, with a bit more work unbuckling straps, the entire bridle.

 

Cody pocketed the trio of jingle bells as a memento, planning to hang them up with the garland he’d kept from the previous year. He debated for a minute, then took all three piercings out. He didn’t think anything about the gold rings could be traced back to him, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

 

The hoof boots took some effort to remove, but Cody managed it, throwing the duct tape into the corner in triumph once he got the sticky stuff off. He kept the boots, just in case. Turning his pet over onto his front, Cody got to work undoing the arm binder. He kept the leather and medical bandage, but let the used tape join the rest in the straw for now. Under the bandage, his pet’s arms were even weaker and paler looking than they’d been at his last check-in, and Cody didn’t envy whoever got to try to fix that, if his pet did end up in a hospital.

 

Reminded of one last important piece of clean-up, Cody left his pet laying face-down in the straw and shifted so he had easy access to his pet’s ass. He lubricated his finger and then slipped it into his pet’s asshole, rubbing around the inside walls before dragging it out, repeating the process until his own come was being scooped out and running down between his pet’s thighs over his balls and then the straw below. Cody finished the job with an enema bulb of water, refilling it twice before he was satisfied.

 

When he was sure nothing of his own remained inside his pet, Cody moved his pet from the area of soaked hay and dumped a bucket of water over his pet’s lower half to clean him.

 

Even without the arm binder in place, his pet’s arms remained locked in their bound position, so it was a simple matter for Cody to wrap his pet up in a blanket and carry him and the bag of tack out to the car, locking the barn up behind him.

 

Cody pulled a hat over his pet’s hair and forehead, partially obscuring his face, and buckled him in so that he just looked like a passenger taking a nap. Cody looked over at him from the driver’s side and sighed. There was really no way to keep him without seriously putting himself in danger of being caught. As he started the car and began the long drive back down to the city, Cody comforted himself with the thought of the loot his pet had helped him get, and how much he’d probably get for it in the end. It would certainly be the most profitable holiday season he’d had yet.


	10. Chapter 10

It had been an unusually somber Christmas in Bushwick that year. Blaine had seriously considered going back to Ohio for the holidays, knowing that he would probably cry the entire time if he stayed where everything was a reminder of his missing fiancée. In the end, though, he couldn’t leave the last place he’d seen Kurt just yet, and he’d spent most of the morning staring bleakly at the Christmas tree, after all. Rachel had set the tree up with Kurt’s ornaments the week before, insisting through restrained tears that  _when_ Kurt came home, he’d want it to be there.

 

Rachel herself had spent a large part of the morning sitting beside Blaine and clutching his hand, neither of them speaking. Even Santana had stayed for the holiday, and apparently hadn’t been able to bring herself to snark even once about the shows of emotion.

 

It had been a difficult month for all of them. No one had realized Kurt was even gone until hours after he’d presumably disappeared, since there was no sign of a struggle in the apartment and none of his things were missing. The only reasons they even knew he’d probably been taken from the apartment were that his phone and coat were still there and that a neighbor did recall seeing Kurt enter the building alone in the late morning. They still had no explanation for what happened between Kurt coming in and when Rachel came home to an empty apartment a few hours later.

 

There had been no sign of a break-in, no ransom demands, no contact or evidence to be found. Sam’s key to the apartment was missing, but they couldn’t even be sure he hadn’t just coincidentally lost it. Sam, though, clearly assumed it was ultimately his fault in some way, and Blaine and Mercedes had struggled to keep him from punishing himself with hours in the gym and obsessive dieting.

 

Rachel had been unusually quiet between sudden outpourings of grief and manically throwing herself into searching for clues. In the beginning, she’d also spent hours calling and following up with the police, at least until the local precinct threatened to block her number. Santana actually had been temporarily banned from the precinct’s premises after a particular outburst when there were still no updates on their missing friend and someone there had suggested that Kurt had probably left on his own, so it was Mercedes now who’d been calling the police periodically for updates.

 

Blaine had more or less moved back into Rachel, Santana, and Kurt’s apartment, and neither of the girls had commented or complained beyond a few token attempts for normality’s sake. Blaine needed to be there, though, where the clothes still smelled like Kurt and he could curl up in Kurt’s bed with the Bruce pillow, pretending for a second that he had the love of his life back.

 

Burt and Carole, of course, were devastated, and Blaine and Rachel had both been making sometimes-daily phone calls back and forth with them.

 

But there was still no sign of Kurt.

 

Santana, who had been pacing back and forth in front of the window like a caged leopard for at least an hour, finally snapped and stomped out the door with a brusque, “I’m getting the mail.” Rachel squeezed Blaine’s hand. They both had come to learn that was code for Santana needing to go somewhere and cry messily.

 

A scream from the street below brought both of them up on their feet a minute later. Screams did just  _happen_ sometimes in Bushwick, but that sounded like Santana.

 

Blaine hurtled for the door and down the stairs, Rachel following behind after grabbing a baseball bat she’d taken to keeping by the door.

 

Blaine didn’t know what he’d expected to find at the entrance to their building, but it hadn’t been this – Santana was crouched down in the snow, hands hovering over the curled-up naked form of  _Kurt_.

 

“Oh my god,” Blaine breathed, and he could distantly hear Rachel shrieking the same thing behind him. He nearly knocked Santana out of the way in dropping down next to his unconscious fiancée, and Blaine scooped him up in his arms immediately, needing to feel him and hold him and know it was real.

 

“We – we have to get him inside,” Rachel was saying, her voice gone high-pitched in shock and confusion and joy. “He’ll freeze out here, come on, and then I’ll call – I’ll tell  _Mercedes_ to call the police, and I’ll get us a taxi for the hospital and… Oh  _Kurt_.” She reached over Blaine’s shoulder to run her hand through Kurt’s hair, as if reassuring herself it was true.

 

Blaine was still too focused on finally having Kurt back in his arms to pay attention to anything but checking that he wasn’t injured, but some things were catalogued in the back of his mind, to be brought out and examined later, when he was over the shock of Kurt being  _here_.

 

There were reddened, roughened impressions on either side of Kurt’s mouth, for one, following the outer corners of his lips outward a little. And there was something strange about the way he was holding his arms folded behind him, even unconscious, and the skin on his arms was oddly pale and almost peeling in places. His feet were pointed downward as if he was on tip-toe, too. The worst of it became visible when Blaine hugged Kurt closer and saw a patch of color very low on his back. At first, Blaine thought it was just that Kurt’s ass was pinked by the cold, having been bare in contact with the snow, but then Santana gasped and swore and Blaine had to admit what he was actually seeing – Kurt’s ass was red with some kind of injuries, raised lines of welts striping the skin in mostly the same direction, though a good number criss-crossed, with broken skin in some of the places where the lines overlapped. Someone had hurt his fiancée there viciously and, judging by the varying stages of healing and a few recent scars, repeatedly over a long time.

 

Blaine found himself hugging Kurt closer to him for a long second before Rachel was tugging at his arm and he realized she’d successfully hailed a taxi.

 

“Come on!” she was saying. “Get him in, we’re taking him to the hospital!”

 

Blaine nodded automatically and stood up very carefully, lifting Kurt’s limp form with some difficulty. Rachel hovered around, fussing, as if she’d be able to help, and Santana stood back with her arms crossed and brow furrowed. Blaine was able to get Kurt in on his own eventually, and it wasn’t until they were halfway to the hospital, all of them piled into the taxi with a very uncomfortable-looking driver, that he remembered that he should call Burt and Carole.

 

That emotional phone call lasted until they were in front of the hospital, and Blaine said good-bye so that he could bring Kurt inside and then help Rachel fill out the forms, with the assurance that Burt and Carole would be there on the next flight out.

 

The hours after Kurt was admitted passed slowly, and Blaine couldn’t bring himself to leave the crowded waiting room full of odd holiday injuries and illnesses. He didn’t even leave for coffee when Santana announced that she needed some and stormed out, followed by Mercedes, who’d arrived with Sam soon after Kurt was swept away by doctors. Blaine  _needed_ to be there in case there was any news of Kurt, he’d never forgive himself if he was out of the room when a doctor came with news.

 

Finally,  _finally_ , the doctors came with an update, and the news that Kurt had woken up.

 

Blaine almost collapsed in relief, but managed to keep himself from pushing past the doctor to go find Kurt. That relief, though, was tempered by the doctor’s other news – although he had no serious visible injuries, Kurt had clearly sustained some form of prolonged trauma, and some kind of damage to one of his vocal cords had rendered him mute.

 

Blaine could feel tears pricking his eyes at that, and he had to raise a hand to his mouth for a second. Rachel gasped loudly and Mercedes and Santana both exclaimed – the latter more vulgarly than the former. “But – you can fix that, right?” Sam asked, a little desperately. “That’s just for now.”

 

The doctor’s sympathetic look told them the answer before she did.

 

Blaine’s head was still swimming as he was allowed back for a visit with his fiancée – Rachel had reflexively tried to claim the first visit, but curbed herself just as quickly. The thought of Kurt’s voice being gone was like a shot to the heart. Kurt was never quiet for long, and one of Blaine’s favorite things was to just listen to him rant or talk about something excitedly, and the idea of someone taking that away from his fiancée, not to mention  _singing_ …

 

When he got to the room, the doctor put a hand out to stop him before entering. “You need to stay calm when you’re with him. We can’t discuss his medical status or treatment with you until his family arrives, but he needs quiet and reassurance right now, not displays of strong emotion.” With that, she let Blaine in.

 

He felt even more unsettled than before on hearing the doctor’s warning, and it only got worse when he entered the room.

 

His first reaction was uncomplicated joy at seeing his fiancée again, especially knowing that he was awake.

 

His second reaction, though, was to be deeply unnerved. Kurt was lying curled up on his side, his back to the door, and his arms were still folded behind his back. The thin sheet was pulled over him, but his position under it was obvious all the same.

 

“Kurt?” Blaine called gently, stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind him.

 

Kurt tensed visibly, then froze. He didn’t turn around.

 

Blaine frowned and walked around the bed with hurried steps so he could see his fiancée’s face.

 

Kurt’s eyes were on him immediately as soon as he was in view, but the expression on his face was somewhat less welcoming. Something about him seemed deeply confused, and seeing his strong fiancée look so  _lost_ shook Blaine to the core, though he did his best to conceal it. As Blaine approached, Kurt’s expression cycled through an indecipherable series of emotions before settling on just a few, his mouth pulling back a little, eyebrows pinched in sorrow and loss and guilt.

 

“Hey there,” Blaine tried, smiling as gently as he could. He sat in the chair beside the bed and found himself leaning in on reflex, needing to be as close to Kurt as he could.

 

Kurt’s eyes were still fixed on Blaine’s face, barely blinking although they were beginning to hold a telltale wet sheen.

 

Suddenly, the pain of the last month and the overwhelming relief tinged with terror from seeing Kurt again, and from seeing the state he was in, were too much to keep in. “Kurt, I missed you so much,” Blaine choked out. “I didn’t know if I’d ever…  _God_ , I love you.”

 

Kurt’s tears did spill over then, trickling down over his cheeks and nose to soak into the pillow, but he didn’t move closer, only continued to watch Blaine with a somehow desperate stare.

 

Without thinking, Blaine reached out to wipe away the tears, but that made Kurt move for the first time – only to flinch away from Blaine’s hand.

 

Blaine froze, and Kurt flinched again, his stare turning guilty, but his eyes never left Blaine.

 

“I love you so much,” Blaine heard himself saying, as if from a distance. Kurt looked even sadder at that.

 

Blaine had a good idea of what had probably happened to Kurt while he was gone. He couldn’t bring himself to actually think about it, because it made his stomach churn and hate rise up for whoever had done this, but there were only so many conclusions he could draw from the state in which Kurt had been left at their door.

 

Blaine took a deep breath and reached out more slowly. This time, Kurt didn’t move away, and Blaine wiped some of the tears off his cheeks. “I’m always going to love you, Kurt,” he said. “Whatever happened can’t change that. I’m going to be right here for the rest of my life, however you need me.” He heard his own voice crack. “We’re going to figure this out together, okay?”

 

Kurt’s tears came harder, and Blaine couldn’t help but get up and carefully lower himself onto the bed beside Kurt, moving as quickly as he dared. Kurt didn’t move away, though, and although he froze for the first second when Blaine came near, his eyes remained locked on Blaine’s face like he would disappear if he looked away, and he seemed to relax minutely when Blaine draped an arm over him.

 

They lay there quietly for a moment, then something seemed to break in Kurt. He surged forward to curl into Blaine, and he was suddenly sobbing. Soundless gasps escaped him a he soaked Blaine’s neck and shirt.

 

Blaine held onto him as tightly as he could, feeling tears streaking down his own face, and felt around Kurt’s arms until he came in contact with one of his hands and gripped it. At first, Kurt’s hand was cold and unresponsive in his, the skin odd feeling and clammy. But after an interminable time of lying together, just before the door opened to admit the doctor again, Blaine felt Kurt squeeze his hand back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There probably won't be an epilogue beyond this, but assume that from here on, Kurt's recovery is very difficult, but he does get his voice and use of his limbs back. Cody is arrested in Canada when his fence is caught and turns him in, although Kurt still hasn't told anyone about what really happened at that point. Once Cody is safely in prison for robbery and trafficking the stolen goods, Kurt admits what happened to him and finally can be convinced to start getting serious help and he begins to heal.


End file.
